U.S. Department of Justice

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Legal questions remain after Obama disses DOMA

Dismantling discrimation
Gay-marriage advocates got good news last month, when the Obama administration admitted that it was incapable of defending the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), the federal law that defines marriage as between one man and one woman.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | March 02, 2011

Fighting back

Two cases in federal court here in Massachusetts could help turn the national tide against DOMA
Thanks to a federal law that codifies discrimination against same-sex couples, more than 15,000 legally married couples (and an untold number of children) are being denied basic benefits, such as the right to file their taxes jointly, or Social Security payments and health-insurance subsidies.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | June 04, 2010

Rotten Apple

Letters to the Boston editor, May 28, 2010
I appreciated your timely article on Apple’s evolution from underdog to corporate bully.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | May 26, 2010

Bully for BU!

A curious conflict of interest is followed by a legal threat — from a journalism center!
After six years at the Phoenix , I recently got my first pre-emptive libel threat. It came, most unexpectedly, from an investigative reporter. And beyond the fact that this struck me as a blatant attempt at intimidation, it demonstrated how tricky journalism's new, collaboration-driven future could be.
By ADAM REILLY | March 12, 2010

By | January 01, 0001

Flynn-terrogation

Obsessed with the wrongs of Abu Ghraib, local author Nick Flynn traveled across the globe to meet its victims
In his powerful new memoir, The Ticking Is the Bomb (W.W. Norton), Scituate native Nick Flynn recounts a conversation he had with a man in Turkey.
By MIKE MILIARD | January 13, 2010

Unmaking a bad federal law

Justice for Some
It's been a depressing stretch for supporters of marriage equality.
By ADAM REILLY | November 24, 2009

Injustice everywhere

Letters to the Portland Editor, October 9, 2009
Thank you for the timely interview with Harvey Silverglate.
By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS | October 07, 2009

You're all guilty!

In his new book, Three Felonies A Day , Harvey Silverglate dissects the corrupt justice practiced by federal prosecutors
Silverglate's thesis is as provocative as it is simple: justice has become sufficiently perverted in this nation that federal prosecutors, if they put their minds to it, could find a way to indict almost any one of us for almost anything. It is a truly radical notion.
By PETER KADZIS | September 28, 2009

Ted's turn

Clinton caves on crime bill, but Kennedy can still salvage it
A little-known provision in the crime bill now being negotiated by a House-Senate conference committee would greatly expand the number of prison cells available to house violent criminals, and it wouldn't be cost a dime. But it may be doomed unless Senator Ted Kennedy is willing to spend some political capital.
By AL GIORDANO | August 26, 2009

Federal investigation requested

More prison turmoil
Stirred into action by the murder of a wheelchair-bound prisoner, human-rights activists have asked the federal Department of Justice to investigate the treatment of Maine State Prison inmates.
By LANCE TAPLEY | July 22, 2009

Human rights watch

Acknowledging, and punishing, torture
Last week, on the heels of anti-torture panels and protests in Portland, Washington DC, and elsewhere, the Justice Department told the nation that it would have to wait a few more days before information about American torture policies and practices is made public.
By DEIRDRE FULTON | June 24, 2009

Benign neglect?

It's time Obama moved vigorously to advance gay and lesbian rights
If you are gay or lesbian, or if you care about realizing social justice, you must be wondering when Obama is going to turn his attention to the fact that one in 10 of the nation's more than 230 million adults are second-class citizens.
By EDITORIAL | June 24, 2009

Right wing done wrong

Letters to the Boston editor, June 19, 2009
As someone who is Republican by party and conservative by inclination, I must take issue with your editorial “Right Wing Terror” on several fronts.
By BOSTON PHOENIX LETTERS | June 17, 2009

Under attack

Civil liberties' limits grow
Recent decisions by President Barack Obama and Maine Governor John Baldacci have dampened progressive hopes that the Republican-inspired war on civil liberties might be winding down.
By JEFF INGLIS | June 10, 2009

Cracking up

State legislators across the country are filing resolutions declaring state sovereignty just as they did the last time a Democrat won the White House
Republicans all over the country find themselves backed into an ideological and political corner: their dogma has brought the country, and their party, to ruin.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | March 19, 2009

Whitehouse: Pushing to pull the truth about Bush's war skullduggery from under bus

Digging deep
Rhode Island's Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse had a Joseph Welch moment during last week's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
By PETER VOSKAMP | March 11, 2009

Prevention suspension

Will funding cuts thwart area schools' efforts to stop sexual assault before it starts?
Combating sexual assault is especially tough if your workspace is the size of a professional basketball player's shoebox.
By SARA FAITH ALTERMAN | December 12, 2008

Freedom watch: Jailhouse bloc

The real reason law-and-order types love mandatory-minimum sentencing? It's money in their pockets.
With aromatic puffs of change, Bay State stoners rejoiced on Election Day.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE AND KYLE SMEALLIE | December 09, 2008

McCain’s crooked talk on torture

Critics, including a local former army interrogator, say he’s trying to play both sides of the issue
It might surprise some that McCain’s record in opposing torture and the Bush administration’s terror-war approach is more complicated than his comments suggest.
By IAN DONNIS | September 18, 2008

Olympian anti-heroes

Sports blotter: Olympic edition
Greetings, Olympic sports fans!
By MATT TAIBBI | August 08, 2008

Parody flunks out

Political humor is no longer welcome in Academia as administrators choke the life out of parody
Artist Barry Blitt’s brilliant illustration — which sought to satirize the naysayers who portray Obama as a flag-burning, unpatriotic Muslim and his wife as a black-power radical — cut to the core of today’s political paradox.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | July 30, 2008

William Lemmer: Coming home

The further history of a Vietnam-era informer
This article originally appeared in the July 11, 1978 issue of the Boston Phoenix.
By JEFFREY STEIN | July 10, 2008

Our superheroes, ourselves

What the current crop of comic-book action movies tells us about America's identity crisis
Is there a breed of person more tenderly optimistic, more winsomely hopeful for the best, more loyal to the possibility of good, than the American summer moviegoer?
By JAMES PARKER | July 09, 2008

Senate shuffle

Massachusetts hasn’t had a Senate-seat vacancy in nearly 25 years. Now we may have two. Let the speculation begin.
Don’t count Ted Kennedy out just yet, but the prognosis immediately set minds thinking about the inevitable departure of Kennedy from the US Senate, where he has served since 1962.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | August 27, 2008

Our championship season

Brilliant us
This year’s New England Press Association annual awards dinner forsook the Park Plaza’s rubber chicken for the upper-scale poultry fare at the Marriott Copley Place. And the food’s not the only reason we’re glad we went.
By CLIF GARBODEN | February 13, 2008

Righting a staggering wrong

It is time for the US Attorney to investigate how and why the Boston police wrongfully convicted Stephan Cowans
US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan should launch an investigation into how that department managed to help convict the wrong man in the 1997 shooting of a Boston cop.
By EDITORIAL | February 06, 2008

The loud business drumbeat

Who really cares about the poor, the sick, the elderly, or the mentally ill? Keep searching.
The majority legislative Dems do not share Baldacci’s enthusiasm for these cuts, but they seem resigned to them.
By LANCE TAPLEY | January 30, 2008

Ring of fire

The deadbeat FBI fails to pay its phone bills and jeopardizes its wiretapping program
An ugly squabble between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the nation’s biggest phone companies has, in one nasty blow, recast the image of all the entities involved.
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | January 23, 2008

Torture-tapes template

Bush-administration lawyers could be nailed for their role in destroying evidence in the CIA scandal, thanks to a quiet Connecticut child-porn case
Did the Bush-administration lawyers, and the CIA operatives they advised, commit obstruction of justice by destroying the now-infamous CIA-interrogation videotapes?
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | December 16, 2008