Justia columnist and Hunter College Human Rights Program Director Joanne Mariner draws on a recent Human Rights Watch report that she co-authored, regarding the host of post-9/11 counterterrorism laws that have been passed, to question whether these laws cast too wide a net.  As Mariner explains, the report reveals that, in fact, many of the laws have proved overbroad, and that very overbreadth has meant that they have swept in journalists, social protesters, opposition figures, and other disfavored groups who have had nothing to do with terrorism.  Mariner provides specific examples to prove her thesis, citing instances of the misuse of counterterrorism laws to detain protesters in Bahrain, and to detain journalists in Ethiopia.  She also focuses on troublingly unspecific UN Security Council resolutions regarding counterterrorism, that may well open the door to abuse.