September 14, 2008

From the Senate Judiciary Committee, an announcement of a hearing Tuesday morning by the Subcommittee Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights, "Restoring the Rule of Law." Tendentiously framed, don't you think?

Chairman Russell Feingold (D-WI) issued a news release on the hearing. Excerpt:

[The] Subcommittee will hear testimony from legal and historical experts on what steps the next president and the next Congress must take to repair the damage done by the Bush Administration to the rule of law. The hearing is an effort to provide the next president with a full range of recommendations for reestablishing appropriate checks and balances in a variety of areas, including warrantless wiretapping, interrogation standards, detention policy, abuse of executive privilege, excessive government secrecy, violations of privacy and misleading Congress.

In addition to the testimony of the witnesses at the hearing, Senator Feingold has solicited responses from a host of other law professors, historians, advocates and other experts to offer a blueprint to the next president and Congress for what must be done, starting in January 2009, to reverse the previous administration's abuses. Read the written testimony here.

Voluminous materials.