Outer space, also called just space, refers to the relatively empty regions of the Universe outside the atmospheres of celestial bodies. Outer space is used to distinguish it from airspace (and terrestrial locations). Although outer space is certainly spacious, it is far from empty.
There is no discrete boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and space as the atmosphere gradually attenuates with increasing altitude. If the atmosphere had a constant temperature, its pressure would decrease exponentially from a sea-level value of 100 kPa (1 bar) toward its final value of zero. The Federation Aeronautique Internationale has established the Kármán line at an altitude of 100 km (62 miles) as a working definition for the boundary between atmosphere and space. The United States designates people who travel above an altitude of 50 miles (80 km) as astronauts. During re-entry, 400,000 feet (75 miles or 120 km) marks the boundary where atmospheric drag becomes noticeable.
Outer space within our solar system is called interplanetary space, which passes over into interstellar space at the heliopause. The vacuum of outer space is not really empty, it is sparsely filled with interesting things: several dozen organic molecules discovered to date by microwave spectroscopy, 2.7 K blackbody radiation left over from the big bang and the origin of the Universe, and cosmic rays, which include ionized atomic nuclei and various subatomic particles. There is also gas, plasma and dust, and small meteors and junk left over from previous manned and unmanned launches which are a hazard to astronauts. Some of this debris re-enters the atmosphere periodically.
The absence of air makes outer space (and the surface of the Moon) ideal locations for astronomy at all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, as evidenced by the spectacular pictures sent back by the Hubble Space Telescope, allowing us to see light from about 14 billion years ago, back almost to the time of the big bang. Pictures and other data from unmanned space vehicles have provided invaluable information about the planets from Mercury to Jupiter, Saturn and beyond, as well as asteroids and comets.
There are many artificial satellites orbiting the Earth, including geosynchronous communications satellites 35,786 km (22,241 miles) above mean sea level at the equator. Their orbits never "decay" because there is almost no matter there to exert frictional drag. There is also increasing reliance, for both military and civilian uses, of satellites which enable the Global Positioning System (GPS). A common misconception is that people in orbit are outside Earth's gravity because they are obviously "floating". If they, or indeed any satellite, were outside Earth's gravity, it would fly off and never return. They are floating because they are in free fall, the downward force of gravity being exactly counterbalanced by an outward centrifugal force due to their orbital motion. Earth's gravity reaches out far past the Van Allen belt and keeps the Moon in orbit at an average distance of 384,403 km (238,857 miles). The gravity of all celestial bodies drops off toward zero with the inverse square of the distance.
Going from sea level to outer space produces a pressure difference of only about 15 lbf/sq in, equal to surfacing from an underwater depth of about 34 ft (10 m). A person suddenly exposed to the vacuum would not explode, but would take a short while to die by asphyxiation (anoxia). Water vapor would start to boil off from exposed areas such as the cornea of the eye, and along with oxygen, from membranes inside the lungs.
There is a wealth of science fiction predicated on faster-than-light interstellar travel. But it's a good bet that the speed of light is a permanent limit that will never be exceeded, as expressed by Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity (1905), which has been amply confirmed by experiments and is one of the foundations of physics.
Exploring Space
Space exploration is the physical exploration of outer space objects and generally anything that involves the technologies, science, and politics regarding space endeavors.
It was given a boost by the launch of Sputnik 1, the first man-made object to orbit the Earth, which set off the space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Two other famous achievements in the early days were putting the first man in space, Yuri Gagarin aboard Vostok 1, and the first people on the Moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin aboard Apollo 11 with Michael Collins. After 30 years of competition focus has started shifting from competition to cooperation and from one-off flights to renewable hardware and most recently to the building of extra-terrestrial launch platforms, such as from a space station and possibly from the Moon.
From a spaceflight perspective, the definition of space usually used is that space begins 100 km (62 miles) above Earth's surface. The United States sometimes uses a 50 mile definition. (See boundary to space.)
Achieving orbit is essential for going anywhere else, such as to the Moon or Mars. The first successful orbital launch was of the Soviet unmanned Sputnik I mission on October 4, 1957. This spectacular success led to an escalation of the American space program, and to an undeclared Space Race between the two superpowers. Soviet dog Laika became the first animal in orbit on November 3, 1957. The first orbital flight made by a human being was Vostok 1, carrying Yuri Gagarin on April 12, 1961.
One can distinguish the sub-orbital spaceflight and the orbital spaceflight (cf. Difference between sub-orbital and orbital spaceflights). As for sub-orbital flights, on October 3, 1942 an A4 rocket, a prototype for the German V2 rocket bomb, became the first successful launch of an object into space. The first organisms launched into space were fruit flies and corn seeds aboard a U.S.-launched V2 rocket in July, 1946. Another milestone was achieved on May 17, 2004 when Civilian Space eXploration Team launched the GoFast Rocket on a suborbital flight, the first amateur space flight. On June 21, 2004, SpaceShipOne became the first privately-funded manned spacecraft.
The key people in early space exploration
The dream of stepping into the outer reaches of the Earth's atmosphere was driven by rocket technology. The German V2 was the first rocket to travel into space, overcoming the problems of thrust and material failure. During the final days of World War II this technology was obtained by both the Americans and Soviets as were its designers. Whilst the initial driving force may well have been a weapons race for inter-continental ballistic missiles, this soon became the "Space Race".
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert Goddard, Hermann Oberth and Reinhold Tilling laid the groundwork of rocketry in the early years of the 20th century.
Wernher von Braun, was lead rocket engineer, first working in Germany during World War II before taking American citizenship and working on the first NASA programs. Von Braun was involved through to the Apollo mission landing a man on the Moon.
The race for space was often led, by Sergei Korolev, whose legacy include both the R7 and Soyuz - which remain in service to this day. Korolev was the mastermind behind the first satellite, first mammal in orbit and first spacewalk. Until his death his identity was closely guarded state secret, not even his mother knew that he was responsible for creating the Russian space programme.
Other key people included:
Valentin Glushko held role of Chief Engine Designer for USSR. Glushko designed the engines of the early Soviet rockets.
Vasily Mishin, Chief Designer working under Sergei Korolev and one of first Soviets to inspect the captured German V2 design. Following the death of Sergei Korolev, Mishin was held responsible for the Soviet failure to be first country to place a man on the moon.
Bob Gilruth, was NASA head of Space Task Force and director of 25 manned space flights. Gilruth was the person who suggested to John F. Kennedy that the Americans take the bold step of reaching the Moon in an attempt to reclaim space superiority from the Soviets.
Criticisms
It is more expensive to perform certain tasks in space with humans rather than by robots or machines. Humans need large spacecraft that contain provisions such as a hermetic and temperature controlled cabin, production of breathable air, food and drink storage, waste disposal, voice- and other communication systems, and safety features such as crew escape systems, medical facilities, etc. There is also the question of the security of the spacecraft as whole; losing a robot is nowhere near as dramatic as human loss, so overall safety of non-human missions isn't as much of an issue. All of these extra expenses have to be weighed against the value of having humans aboard. Some critics argue that those few instances where human intervention is essential do not justify the enormous extra costs of having humans aboard.
Other critics, such as the late physicist and Nobel-prize winner Richard Feynman, have contended that space travel has never achieved any major scientific breakthroughs. However, others counter-argued that there have been many indirect scientific achievements: development of the modern computer, lasers, etc.
Some critics contend that in light of the huge distances in space, human space travel will never be able to do more than achieve an earth orbit or at best visit our closest neighbours in the solar system, and even this will consume large amounts of money and will require complex spacecraft that will accommodate only a handful of people. Supporters of human space travel state that this is irrelevant, because its real value lies in providing a focal point for national prestige and patriotism. They suggest that this was the reason why the Clinton administration cooperated closely with Russia on the International Space Station: it gave Russia something to take pride in, and as such became a stabilizing factor in post-communist Russia. From this point of view, the ISS was a justifiable cash outlay.
Some people also have moral objections to the huge costs of space travel, and point out that even a fraction of the space travel budget would make a huge difference in fighting disease and hunger in the world. However, space exploration itself receives a very small percentage of total government spending (nearly always under 0.5%).
Overall, the public remains largely supportive of both manned and unmanned space exploration. According to an Associated Press Poll conducted in July 2003, 71% of US citizens agreed with the statement that the space program is "a good investment," compared to 21% who did not.
1960's
The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. Informally, it can also include a few years at the end of the preceding decade or the beginning of the following decade. The Sixties has also come to refer to the complex of inter-related cultural and political events which occurred in approximately that period, in Western countries, particularly Britain, France, the United States and West Germany. Social upheaval was not limited to just these nations, reaching large scale in nations such as Japan, Mexico and Canada as well. The term is used both nostalgically by those who participated in those events, and pejoratively by those who regard the time as a period whose harmful effects are still being felt today. The decade was also labelled the Swinging Sixties because of the libertine attitudes that emerged during the decade.
Popular memory has conflated into the Sixties some events which did not actually occur during the period. For example, although some of the most dramatic events of the American civil rights movement occurred in the early 1960s, the movement had already began in earnest during the 1950s. On the other hand, the rise of feminism and gay rights began only in the very late 1960s and did not fully flower until the Seventies. However, the "Sixties" has become synonymous with all the new, exciting, radical, subversive and/or dangerous (according to one's viewpoint) events and trends of the period.
In the United States
The movement for civil and political rights for African Americans (in the early '60s usually called Negroes and in the later '60s Blacks), initially a non-violent movement led by Martin Luther King, Jr. and other Gandhian figures but later producing radical offshoots such as the Black Power movement and competing with the Black Panther Party and the Black Muslims for primacy in the African-American community.
The beginning of what was generally seen as a new political era with the election of President John F. Kennedy in 1960, and its ending in tragedy and disillusionment with Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the assassinations of King and Robert F. Kennedy in 1968, and the collapse of Lyndon Johnson's presidency.
The rise of a mass movement in opposition to the Vietnam War, ending in the massive Moratorium protests in 1969, and also the movement of resistance to conscription (“the Draft”) for the war. The antiwar movement was initially based on the older 1950s "Peace movement" controlled by the Communist Party USA, but by the mid '60s it outgrew this and became a broad-based mass movement centred on the universities and churches.
Stimulated by this movement, but growing beyond it, the large numbers of student-age youth, beginning with the Free Speech Movement at the University of California, Berkeley in 1964, peaking in the riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois and reaching a climax with the shootings at Kent State University in 1970.
The rapid rise of a "New Left," employing the rhetoric of Marxism but having little organizational connection with older Marxist organizations such the Communist Party, and even less connection with the supposed focus of Marxist politics, the organized labor movement, and consisting of ephemeral campus-based Trotskyist, Maoist and anarchist groups, some of which by the end of the 1960s had turned to terrorism.
Rioting at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, 1968
The overlapping, but somewhat different, movement of youth cultural radicalism manifested by the hippies and the counter-culture, whose emblematic moments were the Summer of Love in San Francisco in 1967 and the Woodstock Festival in 1969.
The rapid spread, associated with this movement, of the recreational use of cannabis and other drugs, particularly new semi-synthetic psychedelic drugs such as LSD.
The breakdown among young people of conventional sexual morality and the flourishing of the sexual revolution. Initially geared mostly to heterosexual male gratification, it soon gave rise to contrary trends, Women's Liberation and Gay Liberation.
The rise of an alternative culture among affluent youth, creating a huge market for rock and blues music produced by drug-culture influenced bands such as The Beatles, Jefferson Airplane and The Doors, and also for radical music in the folk tradition pioneered by Bob Dylan.
In other Western countries
The peak of the student and New Left protests in 1968 coincided with political upheavals in a number of other countries. Although these events often sprang from completely different causes, they were influenced by reports and images of what was happening in the United States and France. Students in Mexico City, for example, protested against the corrupt regime of Gustavo Díaz Ordaz: in the resulting Tlatelolco massacre hundreds were killed.
The influence of American culture and politics in Western Europe, Japan and Australia was already so great by the early 1960s that most of the trends described above soon spawned counterparts in most Western countries. University students rioted in London, Paris, Berlin and Rome, huge crowds protested against the Vietnam War in Australia and New Zealand (both of which had committed troops to the war), and politicians such as Harold Wilson and Pierre Trudeau modelled themselves on John F. Kennedy.
An important difference between the United States and Western Europe, however, was the existence of a mass socialist and/or Communist movement in most European countries (particularly France and Italy), with which the student-based new left was able to forge a connection. The most spectacular manifestation of this was the May 1968 student revolt in Paris, which linked up with a general strike called by the Communist-controlled trade unions and for a few days seemed capable of overthrowing the government of Charles de Gaulle.
In non-Western countries
In Eastern Europe, students also drew inspiration from the protests in the West. In Poland and Yugoslavia they protested against restrictions on free speech by Communist regimes. In Czechoslovakia, 1968 was the year of Alexander Dub?ek’s Prague Spring, a source of inspiration to many Western leftists who admired Dub?ek's "socialism with a human face." The Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August ended these hopes, and also fatally damaged the chances of the orthodox Communist Parties drawing many recruits from the student protest movement.
In the People's Republic of China the mid 1960s were also a time of massive upheaval, and the Red Guard rampages of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution had some superficial resemblances to the student protests in the West. The Maoist groups that briefly flourished in the West in this period saw in Chinese Communism a more revolutionary, less bureaucratic model of socialism. Most of them were rapidly disillusioned when Mao welcomed Richard Nixon to China in 1972. People in China, however, saw the Nixon visit as a victory in that they believed the United States would concede that Mao Zedong thought was superior to capitalism (this was the Party stance on the visit in late 1971 and early 1972). The Cuban revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara also became an iconic figure for the student left, although he was in fact an orthodox Communist.
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to as John F. Kennedy, JFK, or Jack Kennedy, was the 35th President of the United States. He served from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. A member of the prominent Kennedy political family, he is considered an icon of American liberalism. During World War II, he served as a naval lieutenant in the Pacific theatre and was cited for exceptional bravery for the rescue of his men. Kennedy is the youngest person ever to have been elected president of the United States, at the age of 43. (Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest ever to serve as President of the United States, following President McKinley's assasination.)
Major events during his presidency included the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the failed prevention of the Israeli nuclear weapons program, the failed prevention of the Chinese nuclear weapons program, the building of the Berlin Wall, the Space Race, early events of the Vietnam War, and the American Civil Rights Movement. In rankings of U.S. presidents, historians usually grade Kennedy above average, but among the general public he is often regarded as among the greatest presidents.
Kennedy is also the first and only Roman Catholic ever to become President, the first president to serve who was born in the 20th century, the last to die while still in office, the last Democrat from the North to be elected, and the last to be elected while serving in the U.S. Senate.
Kennedy died the youngest of any U.S. president, at 46 years and 177 days, when he was assassinated on November 22, 1963. The assassination is often considered a defining moment in U.S. history because of its traumatic impact on the entire nation, its impact on the political history of the ensuing decades, and because of Kennedy's elevation as an icon for a new generation of Americans and American aspirations.
Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th President on January 20, 1961. In his inaugural address he spoke of the need for all Americans to be active citizens. "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country", he said. He also asked the nations of the world to join together to fight what he called the "common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself."
Foreign policies
On April 17, 1961, Kennedy gave orders allowing a previously-planned invasion of Cuba to proceed. With support from the CIA, in what is known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, 1,500 U.S.-trained Cuban exiles, called "Brigade 2506" returned to the island in the hope of deposing Castro, but the CIA had underestimated popular support for Castro, made several mistakes in devising and carrying out the plan, and the exiles did not rally the Cuban people as expected. By April 19 Castro's government had killed or captured most of the invading exiles and Kennedy was forced to negotiate for the release of the 1,189 survivors. After 20 months, Cuba released the captured exiles in exchange for $53 million worth of food and medicine. The incident was a major embarrassment for Kennedy, but he took full responsibility for the debacle.
On August 13, 1961, the East German government began construction of the Berlin Wall separating East Berlin from the Western sector of the city, due to the American military presence in West Berlin. Kennedy claimed this action was in violation of the "Four Powers" agreements. Kennedy initiated no action to have it dismantled, and did little to reverse or halt the eventual extension of this barrier to a length of 155 km.
The Cuban Missile Crisis began on October 14, 1962 when American U-2 spy planes took photographs of a Soviet intermediate range ballistic missile site under construction in Cuba. Kennedy faced a dire dilemma: if the U.S. attacked the sites it might have led to nuclear war with the U.S.S.R. If the U.S. did nothing, it would endure the perpetual threat of nuclear weapons within its region, in such close proximity, that if launched preemptively, the U.S. may have been unable to retaliate. Another fear was that the U.S. would appear to the world as weak in its own hemisphere. Many military officials and cabinet members pressed for an air assault on the missile sites but Kennedy ordered a naval quarantine in which the U.S. Navy inspected all ships. He began negotiations with the Soviets and a week later, he and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev reached an agreement. Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles while the U.S. publicly promised never to invade Cuba, and also secretly promised to remove U.S. ballistic missiles from Turkey within six months. Following this incident, which brought the world closer to nuclear war than at any point before or since, Kennedy was more cautious in confronting the Soviet Union.
Arguing that "those who make peaceful revolution impossible, make violent revolution inevitable", Kennedy sought to contain communism in Latin America, by establishing the Alliance for Progress, which sent aid to troubled countries in the region and sought greater human rights standards in the region. He worked closely with Puerto Rican Governor Luis Muñoz Marín for the development of the Alliance of Progress, as well as developments on the autonomy of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.
Another example of Kennedy's belief in the ability of non-military power to improve the world was the creation of the Peace Corps, one of his first acts as president. Through this program, which still exists today, Americans volunteered to help underdeveloped nations in areas such as education, farming, health care, and construction.
Kennedy also used limited military action to contain the spread of communism. Determined to stand firm against the spread of communism, Kennedy continued the previous administration's policy of political, economic, and military support for the unstable South Vietnamese government, which included sending military advisers and U.S. Special Forces to the area. U.S. involvement in the area continually escalated until regular U.S. forces were directly fighting the Vietnam War in the next administration.
On June 26, 1963 Kennedy visited West Berlin and gave a public speech criticizing communism. While Kennedy was speaking, some people on the other side of the wall in East Berlin were applauding Kennedy and showing their distaste for Soviet control. Kennedy used the construction of the Berlin Wall as an example of the failures of communism - "Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in." The speech is known for its famous phrase "Ich bin ein Berliner".
Troubled by the long-term dangers of radioactive contamination and nuclear weapons proliferation, Kennedy also pushed for the adoption of a Limited or Partial Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited atomic testing on the ground, in the atmosphere, or underwater, but does not prohibit testing underground. The United States, the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union were the initial signatories to the Treaty. Kennedy signed the Treaty into law in August 1963, and believed it to be one of the greatest accomplishments of his administration.
Domestic policies
Kennedy used the term New Frontier as a label for his domestic program. It ambitiously promised federal funding for education, medical care for the elderly, and government intervention to halt the recession. Kennedy also promised an end to racial discrimination.
The turbulent end of state-sanctioned racial discrimination was one of the most pressing domestic issues of Kennedy's era. The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled in 1954 that racial segregation in public schools would no longer be permitted. However, there were many schools, especially in southern states, that did not obey this decision. There also remained the practice of segregation on buses, in restaurants, movie theaters, and other public places.
Kennedy started his fight for civil rights when he appealed to Black voters during his campaign in 1962.
In 1962 James Meredith tried to enroll at the University of Mississippi, but he was prevented by white students. Kennedy responded by sending some 400 federal marshals and 3000 troops to ensure that Meredith could enroll in his first class.
Kennedy also assigned federal marshals to protect Freedom Riders.
Thousands of Americans of all races and backgrounds joined Kennedy in protesting racial discrimination. Kennedy supported racial integration and civil rights, and during the 1960 campaign he telephoned Coretta Scott King, wife of the jailed Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., which drew much black support to his candidacy. However, as president, Kennedy initially believed the grassroots movement for civil rights would only anger many Southern whites and make it even more difficult to pass civil rights laws through Congress, which was dominated by Southern Democrats, and he distanced himself from it. As a result, many civil rights leaders viewed Kennedy as unsupportive of their efforts.
On June 11, President Kennedy intervened when the Governor of Alabama, George Wallace, blocked the doorway to the University of Alabama to stop two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from enrolling. George Wallace moved aside after being confronted by federal marshals, Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, and the Alabama National Guard. That evening Kennedy gave his famous Civil Rights Address on National television and radio. Kennedy proposed what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Also on the domestic front, in 1963 Kennedy proposed a tax reform that included income tax cuts, but this was not passed by the Congress until after his death in 1964. It is one of the largest tax cuts in modern U.S. history, surpassing the Reagan tax cut of 1981.
Support of space programs
Kennedy was eager for the United States to lead the way in the space race. The Soviet Union was ahead of the U.S. in its knowledge of space exploration and Kennedy was determined that the U.S. could catch up. In a speech made at Rice University in September 1962, he said, "No nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space" and "We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."[13] Kennedy asked Congress to approve more than 22 billion dollars for Project Apollo, which had the goal of landing an American man on the Moon before the end of the decade. In 1969, six years after Kennedy's death, this goal was finally realized when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to land on the Moon.
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current President of the United States. Prior to his political career, he was a businessman in the oil industry and served as the managing general partner of the Texas Rangers baseball team.
Bush, a Republican, was elected 46th Governor of Texas in 1994 and was re-elected in 1998. From there, he moved on to win the nomination of the Republican Party for the 2000 presidential race and ultimately defeated Democratic Vice President Al Gore in a particularly close and controversial [1] general election. In 2004, Bush was elected to a second term, defeating Democratic Senator John Kerry. This term will expire January 20, 2009.
Bush is a member of a prominent political family: his father, George H. W. Bush, served as U.S. President for four years and as Vice President for eight, his brother Jeb Bush is the current Governor of Florida, and his grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a Republican United States Senator from Connecticut. Among his family, he acquired the nickname "W" (for his middle initial; later Dubya, a literal spelling of a colloquial pronunciation of the letter), which has become a common public nickname, used both affectionately and pejoratively.
Political ideology
During the 2000 election campaign Bush started to use the phrase compassionate conservatism to describe his beliefs. Some conservatives have questioned Bush's commitment to traditional conservative ideals because of his willingness to incur large budget deficits by permitting substantial spending increases. Democrats and liberals have claimed that the prefixing of the word "conservative" with the adjective "compassionate" was less a new ideology and more a way of making conservatism seem palatable to independent and swing voters. In his 2005 inaugural address he outlined his vision of foreign policy and plan for democracy promotion.
An important element of Bush's presidency is its emphasis on the importance of executive powers and privileges. According to Bush and his supporters, the War on Terrorism requires a very strong executive with the ability to take various kinds of otherwise illegal covert actions against terrorists. For example, Bush repeatedly argued that the limits imposed by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act over-restrict its ability to monitor terrorists electronically, and has pushed for statutory exemptions to those restrictions, including certain parts of the USA PATRIOT Act. The Bush administration threatened to veto two defense bills that included amendments by Senator John McCain that would limit the ability of the executive to authorize cruel inhuman and degrading treatment; Bush and his supporters argued that harsh treatment of detainees believed to be terrorists can be necessary to obtain information that would prevent terrorist attacks.[16] Administration lawyers like John Yoo have argued that the president has inherent authority to wage war as he sees fit, regardless of laws and treaties that may restrict that power. [17] Bush's Chief Justice of the United States appointee, John G. Roberts, considers the executive's power to be quite broad as well; in his decision in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, he wrote that Common Article III of the Geneva Conventions did not apply to people detained in the War on Terrorism, thus authorizing secret military tribunals for suspected terrorists if Bush chose to use them.
The administration has classified previously public information about the executive and written executive orders to block Freedom of Information Act requests and to keep old documents classified beyond their normal expiration date.[18] Bush's critics argue that unreviewable executive power risks abuse for political purposes, undermines civil liberties,[19] and that they are anti-democratic, immoral, and likely to cause resentment, as in the world's response to prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib [20]. Bush's supporters respond that broad powers in the War on Terrorism are necessary to prevent major attacks against the United States[21] and that the president has not abused these powers.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Outer Space", Wikipedia article "Sixties", Wikipedia article "JFK" and Wikipedia article "George W. Bush ".
