British operatives may have acted in ways described variously as counter-productive, crude, clunky and intimidatory, in other words, but their actions illuminate the increasingly nuanced challenges they confront in seeking to square a circle of secrecy, civil rights and national security.
But these Indian politicians seem to have ranked the strategic benefits of secrecy over the right of their constituencies to know how fit their leaders are.
Mr. Obama has not fulfilled all of his promises, and his record on issues like government secrecy and the right of habeas corpus is flawed, but the issue this year is the role of government itself.
Long before the Patriot Act, of 2001, and the expanded authorization of surveillance to fight terrorism — long, even, before the rise of the national-security state — Louis Brandeis predicted the encroachment of technologies of secrecy on the right to privacy.
Long before the Patriot Act, of 2001, and the expanded authorization of surveillance to fight terrorism long, even, before the rise of the national-security state Louis Brandeis predicted the encroachment of technologies of secrecy on the right to privacy.
The trial of Manning has been part of a larger conversation on government secrecy and the right of the public to understand the workings of their elected and unelected officials.
Even though many of the specific rights a (Christian) chaplain enjoys are rooted in traditions rather than in legal rules, there is at least one crucial, legally binding element that defines the chaplain's status: the obligation of secrecy and the right to refuse to testify (Zeugnisverweigerungsrecht).
But what happened to this young crusader raises much deeper questions about our government, about transparency, secrecy, people's right to know and the abuse of power.
It remains unclear what Prisoner X might have done to warrant such extreme treatment — and such extreme secrecy, which human rights groups have denounced as violating international law.
'Secrecy Means No Rights' "Back in the Middle East, when you were held in secret, we had a saying in the Secret Service in Jordan: 'Whoever goes in is lost, and whoever comes out is reborn,' meaning executed," said one Jordanian immigrant, who asked that his name not be used for fear of retribution against relatives still in Jordan.
