Deep Thought

Lakhdar Boumediene Starts Anew in France After Years at Guantánamo – NYTimes.com. The United States government has never acknowledged any error in detaining Mr. Boumediene, though a federal judge ordered his release, for lack of evidence, in 2008. The government did not appeal, a Defense Department spokesman noted, though he declined to answer further questions about Mr. Boumediene’s case. A State Department representative declined to discuss the case as well, except to point to a Justice Department statement announcing Mr. Boumediene’s transfer to France, in 2009.

Police Powers in New York – NYTimes.com. The Police Department’s tendency toward blanket surveillance is on vivid display in its stop-and-frisk program, which results in the stopping of more than 600,000 mainly minority citizens on the streets every year. The department credits the program with reducing crime, but there is no proof that it does. A study carried out in connection with a federal lawsuit against the department has found that only about 6 percent of stops result in arrest and that less than 1 percent turn up weapons. In addition to criminalizing the victims of these stops, the program…

Muslim Employees: Valuable but Vulnerable. For many U.S. Muslims, the American dream is fading as they endure the fear and suspicion that their religion, race or national origin seems to generate. Yet, to many employers’ credit, the sensationalist attitudes reflected in some news reports typically don’t carry over to the workplace.