Daphne Eviatar, lawyer and journalist for the Washington Independent, discusses the Bush Administration’s semantic games that are redefining torture, how John Yoo’s justification of waterboarding conveniently ignored numerous contradictory court precedents, the familiar refrain of fitting legal opinions around the policy, why the Hamdan ruling doesn’t help detainees outside of Guantanamo and how the growing Bagram prison and other “black” detention facilities remain outside the law and hidden from scrutiny.

MP3 here. (33:03)

Daphne Eviatar is a lawyer and freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, The Nation, Legal Affairs, Mother Jones, the Washington Independent and many others. She is a Senior Reporter at The American Lawyer and was an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow in 2005 and a Pew International Journalism fellow in 2002.

Robert Dreyfuss, author of The Dreyfuss Report blog for The Nation, discusses the policy of “hot pursuit” across international boundaries against anyone deemed an enemy, an increased military budget that encourages greater use of special forces, the prospect of a renewed UN mandate replacing a failed Iraq SOFA agreement and how it could effect the incoming U.S. administration, Iran’s decision to reduce confrontation with the U.S., how the Israeli election result will impact prospects for peace in the Middle East and the strategy behind al Qaeda’s attacks against America.

MP3 here. (44:43)

Based in Alexandria, Va., Dreyfuss been writing for Rolling Stone for at least a decade, and currently covers national security for Rolling Stone’s National Affairs section. He’s a contributing editor at The Nation, a contributing writer at Mother Jones, and a senior correspondent for The American Prospect. His articles have also appeared in The Washington Monthly, The New Republic, Newsday, Worth, California Lawyer, The Texas Observer, E, In These Times, The Detroit Metro Times, Public Citizen, Extra!, and, in Japan, in Esquire, Foresight and Nikkei Business. His blog, The Dreyfuss Report, is now at The Nation.