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Accountability, Liability, And The War On Terror -- Constitutional Tort Suits As Truth And Reconciliation Vehicles, George D. Brown

George D. Brown

This Article examines the role of civil suits in providing accountability for the Bush administration's conduct of the "war on terror." There have been calls for a "Truth and Reconciliation Commission" to perform this function, almost like a retroactive impeachment of President Bush. For now, the idea appears to be dead, especially since many of the policies have continued under President Obama. Increasingly, the default accountability mechanism for questioning government conduct is the array of civil suits against federal officials by self-proclaimed victims of the war, cases which might be referred to as reverse war on terror suits. Many of …