The "Bill of Wrongs"

The beginning of the new year is, of course, a time to reflect on the one that has come before it, and inevitably with the turn of the calendar comes an avalanche of top ten lists. Movies, songs, news events — it’s in our nature to organize life so that we can make better sense of it.

Instead of compiling a list of year-in-review entertainment, Dahlia Lithwick at Slate has compiled a list of last year’s ten most outrageous civil liberties violations. The article, entitled “The Bill of Wrongs” is a sobering one — from the abuses at Guantanamo Bay to the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping to the Military Commissions Act of 2006 — they’re all here.

And perhaps it’s when you see an entire list of civil liberties abuses compiled in one place that you realize how dangerous it is to relinquish these rights one by one over time.