J.D. Tuccille on the Obama Administration and Indefinite Detention

Perhaps it's all for the best that the Obama administration oversaw the scrubbing of civil liberties vows that graced the 2008 Democratic Party platform from the 2012 edition, writes J.D. Tuccille, managing editor of Reason 24/7. It's one thing to promise to end practices implemented by your nefarious political opponents; it's quite another to commit to eventually putting an end to abuses you yourself have practiced without restraint. Under the circumstances, credibility suffers. And, on the long list of civil liberties violations that the current occupant of the White House has learned to love, indefinite detention—the practice of holding suspects without charges or trial, and with no certain end to their imprisonment—features prominently.