There has never been a more urgent need to preserve fundamental privacy protections and our system of checks and balances than the need we face today, as illegal government spying, provisions of the Patriot Act and government-sponsored torture programs transcend the bounds of law and our most treasured values in the name of national security.
Federal law enforcement agencies, such as the Justice Department
and Department of Homeland Security, have assumed an unprecedented amount of
authority to detain and spy on individuals. Yet the public has been kept unaware
of how these powers have been used. Government secrecy is a concept completely
at odds with the idea of government accountability. As U.S. District Court
Judge Damon Keith said on the need to open up deportation hearings, "Democracy
dies behind closed doors."
