Secret Detentions at Guantanamo Bay

While the news of the Pope's death, Terri Schiavo's death, and natural disasters have been grabbing most of the headlines, the troubling practice of evading our Constitution's protections for those accused of crimes continues in the Bush administration. Guantanamo Bay has been symbolic of this problem, a place where "the C.I.A. detention effort has been classified as a "special access program," a category that puts it off limits even to most of those with top secret security clearances. "

It makes a lot of us uncomfortable that the same administration that has displayed so much arrogance and incompetance in prosecuting the war on terror is getting away with gross violations of our Constitution. The New York Times reported that "the White House is maintaining extraordinary restrictions on information about the detention of high-level terror suspects, permitting only a small number of members of Congress to be briefed on how and where the prisoners are being held and interrogated."

More oversight is clearly needed. This administration has not earned enough trust to be allowed such incredible powers without sufficient checks. The American people need to demand their government back.