America's Gulag Problem

Aziz Huq
December 15, 2005

Aziz Huq heads the Liberty and National Security Project of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

Everybody but Dick Cheney knows it: America has a Guantánamo problem. While Vice President Dick Cheney continues to insist that Guantánamo’s detainees are “the worst of a very bad lot,” the rest of the world sees the Cuban prison as a symbol of hubris and a rallying cry for Al Qaeda. Calling the camp “an anomaly that has to be dealt with,” even staunch administration ally Tony Blair has joined the worldwide chorus pressing the Bush administration to solve Guantánamo.

But Congress is about to pass a bill that cuts off the only real route out of the Guantánamo mess: A path involving the meaningful review of the factual basis for detention decisions in an independent federal court. An amendment to the Defense Authorization bill, first introduced by Sen. Lindsey Graham, now threatens to constrain tightly federal courts’ historic habeas corpus jurisdiction on behalf of prisoners detained at Guantánamo. And the administration is adding language that would not only give those who commit abuse immunity in court, but would also allow detainees to be locked up based on evidence extracted by torture—a first ever in American law.