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• Tuesday, June 26, 2007 07:11 AM

  WT:

  I was privileged to hear a presentation by Joshua Colangelo-Bryan, a young lawyer acting pro bono for several Bahraini captives in Guantánamo. He spoke at several cities in Arizona, to fairly large audiences, considering the subject of his talk.

  You raise a great and important point. I've been thinking for awhile about writing an article on all of the people who have done such extraordinary work in attempting to impose limits and checks on the Bush presidency in the absence of the institutions that are supposed to do that -- the Congress, the courts, the press, etc.

  If you click on the link on my blogroll to Wired's 27B Stroke 6 blog, you'll find numerous reports about how various Wired reporters, working in conjunction with groups like EPIC, have been working tirelessly over several years to force the Bush administration, AT&T and others to disclose documents revealing what they have been doing with regard to illegal surveillance of Americans' telephone conversations and Internet communications.

  And there are many lawyers who have worked countless hours, for years, on behalf of Guantanamo detainees, or against administration lawbreaking, to preserve basic rights and expose government conduct.

  While Tim Russert preens around giving confidential confessionals to our high government leaders and the rest of them chat about John Edwards' hair and Fred Thompson's smells, it really is true that there is a small army of mostly unseen and unrewarded individuals who are devoted to the country's political values and freedoms trying -- in all sorts of capacities -- to do the job which our political and media institutions have so profoundly failed to do.

  It's worth remembering that periodically and focusing on it.

  —GlennGreenwald Read GlennGreenwald's other letters
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