I plan to do some more reading on Obama’s proposed Executive Order on Indefinite Detention (not least, once an EO becomes public). But here are some preliminary thoughts after having read Adam Serwer’s very good summary of the debate thus far. The biggest reason to do this, IMO, is to head Lindsey Graham (who wants [...]

The Obama administration is preparing an executive order that would formalize indefinite detention without trial for some detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but allow those detainees and their lawyers to challenge the basis for continued incarceration.

The Telegraph reports that a High Peace Council convened by Hamid Karzai may request that some Gitmo detainees be freed so they can participate in peace talks. (h/t Carol Rosenberg) Taliban prisoners would be freed from Guantánamo Bay to potentially join peace negotiations under a proposal from the Afghan council appointed to find a settlement [...]

There is peril to the very fabric of American society when our founding principles are discarded and/or compromised, yet that is exactly what has occurred in the wake of 9/11. The stunning tale of Zeitoun and the Gitmo style gulag known as Camp Greyhound erected five years ago in the wake of Katrina tells us just how far down the slippery slope we have fallen as a nation.

Liveblog coverage of today’s panel discussion, Close Gitmo and Use the Legal System at Netroots Nation 2010. Panelists featured are Adam Serwer, Matthew Alexander, Rep. Jerry Nadler, Vince Warren, and your very own emptywheel, Marcy Wheeler.

Jack Goldsmith and Ben Wittes have an op-ed up in which, claiming that the PR value to military commissions is minimal, Obama should just not give KSM a trial of any sort. They make a clever move in which they first cursorily dismiss the value of civilian trials. A trial potentially adds three things: the [...]

On June 29, 2007, Congressman Norm Dicks sent George Bush an eloquent letter urging him to close Gitmo. It said, among other things, Since the time that captured “enemy combatants” were first brought to Guantanamo Bay in 2002, the detainment facility has undermined America’s image as the model of justice and protector of human rights [...]