Obama's Guantánamo

“This collection of essays reveals the many ways in which the Obama administration, Congress, and the courts have all failed the Guantánamo prisoners. . . . Everyone in a position of power and authority in the U.S. should pay attention to what the lawyers have to say.” —Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison

The United States detention center at Guantánamo Bay has become the symbol of an unprecedented detention system of global reach and immense power. Since the 9/11 attacks, the news has on an almost daily basis headlined stories of prisoners held indefinitely at Guantánamo without charge or trial, many of whom have been interrogated in violation of restrictions on torture and other abuse. These individuals, once labeled “enemy combatants” to eliminate legal restrictions on their treatment, have in numerous instances been subject to lawless renditions between prisons around the world. The lines between law enforcement and military action; crime and war; and the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of power have become dangerously blurred, and it is time to unpack the evolution and trajectory of these detentions to devise policies that restore the rule of law and due process.

Obama's Guantánamo: Stories from an Enduring Prison describes President Obama’s failure to close America’s enduring offshore detention center, as he had promised to do within his first year in office, and the costs of that failure for those imprisoned there. Like its predecessor, Guantánamo Lawyers: Inside a Prison Outside the Law, Obama's Guantánamo consists of accounts from lawyers who have not only represented detainees, but also served as their main connection to the outside world. Their stories provide us with an accessible explanation of the forces at work in the detentions and place detainees' stories in the larger context of America's submission to fearmongering. These stories demonstrate all that is wrong with the prison and the importance of maintaining a commitment to human rights even in times of insecurity.

“Hafetz has done it again. . . . Obama's Guantánamo helps ensure that the stories of the prisoners, their lawyers, and the public officials responsible for this overlong grim saga are remembered long after the doors are shuttered.” —Eugene R. Fidell, Yale University

“These searing essays on the ‘enduring prison’ make an impressive follow up to The Guantanamo Lawyers, an earlier collection coedited by Hafetz . . . This book, from a legal perspective, looks deeply and insightfully into an American institution working in secret in the age of the War on Terror.” —Publishers Weekly