Regarding Indefinite Administrative Detention Essay

6. Pretrial detainees are "walking legal contradictions" because “According to the U.S. Constitution, they are innocent until proven guilty. At the same time, by being incarcerated while awaiting trial, they are denied a number of personal freedoms and are subjected to the poor conditions of manu jails” (Gaines

POL 201 Week 5 Final Paper Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, and the War on Terror

The United States Government has no problem with getting out on technicalities. Thus it is not surprising that we have the same human rights problems now that we did during the Salem Witch Trials. In Guantanamo Bay, people accused of terrorism are held without conviction for as long as 15 years. The United States Government is allowed to do this without charging the accused because it is not United States territory. Although this may not be morally correct, it certainly serves the purpose of getting people to confess, and holding people that are believed to be a threat to this country. There are plenty of similarities in due process shared between Guantanamo Bay and Salem, Massachusetts.

Yaser Esam Hamdi is an American citizen born in Louisiana in 1980. In 2001, Hamdi was captured by the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan and turned over to the United States as an enemy combatant. The United States government detained and interrogated Hamdi in Afghanistan until they moved him to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The U.S. government found out that Hamdi was an American citizen and transferred him to a brig in Norfolk, Virginia and then later to a brig in Charleston, South Carolina. The government labeled Hamdi as an enemy combatant and said that justified the holding of Hamdi indefinitely without any formal charges. The injury suffered by Hamdi is that he has been interrogated and being held in prison indefinitely with no formal charge. Along with that, Hamdi had not been granted any of his rights as an American citizen. In June 2002, Esam Fouad Hamdi, Yaser Hamdi’s father filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in a federal district court. The district court appointed a public defender to Hamdi and ordered for him to have access to Hamdi, so the government appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals. The U.S. Court of Appeals sided with the government stating that the district court had failed to respect the government’s security. The case then went back to the district court, where the decision was that the evidence set forth by the government was not enough to detain Hamdi. The district court then reversed its ruling because

In conclusion, since the US government argued stating that the Federal courts had no jurisdiction to hear the case since the prisoners were not American citizens and they were still being held in territory over which the United States did not have sovereignty. The lease gives the United States exclusive and indefinite control over the area, and the defendants are subject to indefinite detention without a trial or hearing by any tribunal. The US Government was at war with the Terrorists and necessary measures needed to be taken in order to protect other people from potential harm. Therefore, let the government deal with those captives without the involvement of the courts system.

Every person has the right to undergo a judicial hearing to avoid illegal detention. However, if that person poses threat to the society and the state, there are instances that the said right is overseen where these types of people are quickly detained after capturing. The writ of Habeas Corpus gives the rights to the captured people to undergo judicial trial. But there is also an article in the U.S. Constitution that states that the writ of Habeas Corpus can only be lifted if the people being questioned in involved in a rebellion or pose a threat to the safety of the public. That is why the administration of the previous U.S. President Bush detained all of the people whom they tagged as terrorist and were captured in the war on Afghanistan in 2001. The question now is to what extend must be the actions of an individual in order to undergo proper trial hearing or to just be put in imprisonment without any hearings or trials done? The purpose of this paper is to review issues within Habeas Corpus and GITMO, discuss how policies changing over time affect the dynamic state of United States, and how these changes can make a big impact to the future law making and practice of the country that is why this issue must be evaluated and examined.

Bush 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress did not have the power to stop the Court from hearing requests made by prisoners accused of terrorism locked up at Guantanamo.

‘Phycologists find these tactics immoral and beyond torturous, and a ticking time bomb for disaster (O’Donohue).’ Although not everyone disagrees with the tactics Research has shown that these interrogations both have pros and cons. Research from the Phycological association shows that these types of interrogations “betrays trust and human rights, professional ethics and the society's trust (Pope).” For example, many believe that the interrogations break the Miranda rights per the 5th amendment, but others argue that the 5th amendment rights should be reserved only for people holding a valid US citizenship. (Rychlak) Medical ethics of the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba, because these facilities are not on US soil the 5th Amendment rights should also apply to these detainees that are detained, making it a national policy. (Quinn) After the 9/11 attacks congress authorized president Bush to authorize “all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons’ (Worthington).” However, this was quickly shut down by former

ISSUE(S): Does Yaser Hamdi have standing as a United States citizen to contest his detention once labeled as an “enemy combatant?”

Facts: Yaser Esam Hamdi, an American citizen was detained by the Northern Alliance forces on the battle fields of Afghanistan in late 2001. Hamdi was then consider to be an enemy combatant, in other words a traitor, in which he was held by the Department of Defense. Hamdi’s father then, petition for a federal district court for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that his son had no wrong and was unlawfully held. However, the court countered with, “they had the right to detain him due to war time”. In addition, the president, George W. Bush took action and said to use “all and appropriate force” and those designated as “enemy combatant”.

Pursuing this further, it is evident that allowing United States government and military to detain suspected terrorists without a fair trial jeopardizes the rights of American citizens. The sixth amendment states, “ … the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense” (Sixth Amendment). The provision in the defense law denies suspected terrorists, including

According to the USA patriots act, the practice of detaining aliens that are close associates with terrorism is not a good idea. The decision by the court can be said not to be the best because it included even people who are close to the groups that practise these heinous activities. The criteria for deportation and detention that covers the plotters or the actual implementers of the terrorist act and the other people that are related or are close affiliated with the groups linked to these individuals go against the rights and freedoms of individuals. The action is against the human rights because all individuals have a right not to detention without trial.

Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, and the War on Terror have all played a role throughout history. Throughout history, the motivation of man’s self interest has concluded in the domination of those with little or no power in the absence of the rule of law. The war on terror presents an unpredictable challenge for the United States since terrorists are apprehended and deprived of due process. Habeas corpus is considered to be one of the most fundamental guarantees of personal liberty that we cherished as a country since the inception of our Constitution. However, debates have arisen regarding the proper

Secondly, Pfiffner (2005) contends that the traditional boundaries set on treatment of prisoners were relaxed by governmental memorandums and policy changes developed by the Bush administration. The first memorandum came from Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee in early January 2002. Here Bybee wrote that Al Qaeda members were not protected by the Geneva Convention because they were “Non-State Actors” (Pfiffner, 2005 p. 318). The second influential memo came from Counsel to the President Alberto Gonzales on January 25, 2002. This memo reiterated the reasoning behind Bybee’s memo and stated that war on terrorism was “a new kind of war” therefore this “new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners.

In the United States, one of the major methods in obtaining crucial information has been through the use of Guantanamo Bay. While many have condemned of the torture that is believed to occur there, not only does Guantanamo Bay comply with national and international standards, but it also complies with Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions (Meese 1) which states