Gitmo confirms our ancestors’ concerns

  What the Pentagon and the CIA have done with their prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba reflects the concern of our American ancestors who demanded the enactment of the Bill of Rights immediately after the Constitution brought into existence the federal government.

  Recall that when the Constitutional Convention met, it was with the purpose of simply amending the Articles of Confederation, the governmental system under which the United States had been operating for 13 years.

Jacob G. Hornberger: America - A military nation

  Americans like to think of their country as different from those run by military regimes. They are only fooling themselves. Ever since the federal government was converted into a national-security state after World War II (without a constitutional amendment authorizing the conversion), it has been the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA that have run the government, just like in countries governed by military dictatorships.

  Oh sure, the façade is maintained — the façade that is ingrained in all of us in civics or government classes in high school and college: that the federal government is composed of three co-equal, independent branches that are in charge of the government.

Jacob G. Hornberger: Iran's criminal justice system reminds us of ours

  The judicial procedures that Iranian officials are using in the criminal trial of Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian remind us of our judicial system here in the United States. No, not the federal judicial system here within the United States but rather the U.S. judicial system that the Pentagon and the CIA have established and operate at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.