U.S. Department of Justice

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Legal questions remain after Obama disses DOMA

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.
Dismantling discrimation
By DEIRDRE FULTON | March 04, 2011

Fighting back

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
Two cases in federal court here in Massachusetts could help turn the national tide against DOMA
By DEIRDRE FULTON | June 04, 2010

Rotten Apple

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

Bully for BU!

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 journ
A curious conflict of interest is followed by a legal threat — from a journalism center!
By ADAM REILLY | March 12, 2010

Live Nation COO Gerry Barad On Mega-Merger Music Biz Apocalypse 2010!

Gerry Barad, COO, Live Nation Global TouringIt's hardly been a month since the mammoth Ticketmaster/Live Nation merger plowed through the US Department of Justice --...
By Matt Parish | March 10, 2010

Flynn-terrogation

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.
Obsessed with the wrongs of Abu Ghraib, local author Nick Flynn traveled across the globe to meet its victims
By MIKE MILIARD | January 15, 2010

Unmaking a bad federal law

It's been a depressing stretch for supporters of marriage equality.
Justice for Some
By ADAM REILLY | November 27, 2009

Injustice everywhere

Thank you for the timely interview with Harvey Silverglate.
Letters to the Portland Editor, October 9, 2009
By PORTLAND PHOENIX LETTERS | October 09, 2009

You're all guilty!

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 r
In his new book, Three Felonies a Day , Harvey Silverglate dissects the corrupt justice practiced by federal prosecutors
By PETER KADZIS | September 25, 2009

Ted's turn

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 Sen
Clinton caves on crime bill, but Kennedy can still salvage it
By AL GIORDANO | August 28, 2009

Federal investigation requested

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.
More prison turmoil
By LANCE TAPLEY | July 24, 2009

Human rights watch

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
Acknowledging, and punishing, torture
By DEIRDRE FULTON | June 26, 2009

Benign neglect?

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.
It's time Obama moved vigorously to advance gay and lesbian rights
By EDITORIAL | June 26, 2009

Right wing done wrong

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

Under attack

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.
Civil liberties' limits grow
By JEFF INGLIS | June 12, 2009

Cracking up

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.
State legislators across the country are filing resolutions declaring state sovereignty just as they did the last time a Democrat won the White House
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | March 18, 2009

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

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

PREVENTION SUSPENSION

WILL FUNDING CUTS THWART AREA SCHOOLS' EFFORTS TO STOP SEXUAL ASSAULT BEFORE IT STARTS?
WILL FUNDING CUTS THWART AREA SCHOOLS' EFFORTS TO STOP SEXUAL ASSAULT BEFORE IT STARTS?
By SARA FAITH ALTERMAN | December 10, 2008

Freedom watch: Jailhouse bloc

With aromatic puffs of change, Bay State stoners rejoiced on Election Day.
Want to know the real reason the law-and-order set backs mandatory-minimum sentencing? They get their pockets lined by the 'prison-industrial complex.'
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE AND KYLE SMEALLIE | December 03, 2008

McCain’s crooked talk on torture

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.
Critics, including a local former army interrogator, say he’s trying to play both sides of the issue
By IAN DONNIS | September 17, 2008

Olympian anti-heroes

Greetings, Olympic sports fans!
Sports blotter: Olympic edition
By MATT TAIBBI | August 06, 2008

Parody flunks out

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.
Political humor is no longer welcome in Academia as administrators choke the life out of parody
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | July 30, 2008

William Lemmer: Coming home

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

Our superheroes, ourselves

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?
What the current crop of comic-book action movies tells us about America's identity crisis
By JAMES PARKER | July 09, 2008

Senate shuffle

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.
Massachusetts hasn’t had a Senate-seat vacancy in nearly 25 years. Now we may have two. Let the speculation begin.
By DAVID S. BERNSTEIN | May 28, 2008

Our championship season

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.
Brilliant us
By CLIF GARBODEN | February 13, 2008

Righting a staggering wrong

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.
It is time for the US Attorney to investigate how and why the Boston police wrongfully convicted Stephan Cowans
By EDITORIAL | February 06, 2008

The loud business drumbeat

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

Ring of fire

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.
The deadbeat FBI fails to pay its phone bills and jeopardizes its wiretapping program
By HARVEY SILVERGLATE | January 23, 2008

Torture-tapes template

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

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