Obama and the Magna Carta.

• Author: Jordan, Mark
• Position: Letters to the Editor - Letter to the editor

Matthew Rothschild succinctly captures why even U.S. citizens have so much to fear from anti-terrorism laws ("Ripping Up the Magna Carta," Comment, February issue).

I do, however, take issue with Rothschild's presumption that tossing [U.S. citizens] into Guantanamo is "as nothing compared to killing them." The editor is suggesting--inaccurately, in my view--that death by assassination is a greater evil to suffer than indefinite detention in isolation.

I spent eleven years under three Administrations (1999-2010) detained in solitary confinement at the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. Studying the haunting scars of that isolation regime, I suggest that death would have been preferable to the tortures inherent in long-term isolation and solitary confinement.

Mark Jordan

United States Penitentiary

Special Management Unit

Lewisburg, Pennsylvania

Thank you for your editorial "Ripping up the Magna Carta" on the National Defense Authorization Act. We civil libertarians (that includes most of your readers, I would hope) have needed to be deeply worried. The law is unconstitutional and clearly aimed at pleasing those who will do absolutely anything in the name of anti-terrorism.

In addition to the Republican John McCain who sponsored the bill, we...