Habeas Corpus After 9 11

Examines the rise of an American-run global detention system, including Guantâanamo Bay, Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and secret CIA jails, and discusses efforts that are being made to challenge this new prison system through habeas corpus.

An authoritative assessment of the new laws of war and a sensible and sophisticated roadmap for the future of liberty in the Age of Terror America is losing a crucial front in the ongoing war on terror. It is losing not to Al Qaeda, but to its own failure to construct a set of laws that will protect the American people during this global conflict. As debate continues to rage over the legality and ethics of war, Benjamin Wittes enters the fray with a sober-minded exploration of law in wartime that is definitive, accessible, and nonpartisan. Outlining how this country came to its current impasse over human rights and counterterrorism, Law and the Long War paves the way toward fairer, more accountable rules for a conflict without end.

Following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States imprisoned more than 750 men at its naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The detainees, ranging from teenagers to elderly men from over forty different countries, were held for years without charges, trial, or a fair hearing. Without any legal status or protection, they were truly outside the law: imprisoned in secret, denied communication with their families, and subjected to extreme isolation, physical and mental abuse, and, in some instances, torture. These are the detainees' stories, told by their lawyers because the prisoners themselves were silenced. It took lawyers who had filed habeas corpus petitions over two years to finally gain the right to visit and talk to their clients at Guantánamo. Even then, lawyers worked under severe restrictions, designed to inhibit communication and maximize secrecy. Eventually, however, lawyers did meet with their clients. This book contains over 100 personal narratives from attorneys who have represented detainees held at Guantánamo as well as at other overseas prisons, from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan to secret CIA jails or "black sites."

This book examines the commemoration of 9/11 in American memorial culture. It argues that the emergence of counter-memories of September 11 has been compromised by the dominance of certain narrative paradigms – or, frames of memory – that have mediated the representation of the attacks across cultural, critical, political, and juridical discourses.

The terrorist attacks of 9/11 are indelibly etched into our cultural memory. This is the story of how the legal ramifications of that day brought two presidents, Congress, and the Supreme Court into repeated confrontation over the incarceration of hundreds of suspected terrorists and “enemy combatants” at the US naval base in Guantánamo, Cuba. Could these prisoners (including an American citizen) be held indefinitely without due process of law? Did they have the right to seek their release by habeas corpus in US courts? Could they be tried in a makeshift military judicial system? With Guantánamo well into its second decade, these questions have challenged the three branches of government, each contending with the others, and each invoking the Constitution’s separation of powers as well as its checks and balances. In The 9/11 Terror Cases, Allan A. Ryan leads students and general readers through the pertinent cases: Rasul v. Bush and Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, both decided by the Supreme Court in 2004; Hamdan v. Bush, decided in 2006; and Boumediene v. Bush, in 2008. An eloquent writer and an expert in military law and constitutional litigation, Ryan is an adept guide through the nuanced complexities of these cases, which rejected the sweeping powers asserted by President Bush and Congress, and upheld the rule of law, even for enemy combatants. In doing so, as we see clearly in Ryan's deft account, the Supreme Court's rulings speak directly to the extent and nature of presidential and congressional prerogative, and to the critical separation and balance of powers in the governing of the United States.

This book tells the story of habeas corpus from medieval England to modern America, crediting the rocky history to the writ's very nature as a government power. The book weighs in on habeas's historical controversies - addressing the writ's role in the power struggle between the federal government and the states, and the proper scope of federal habeas for state prisoners and for wartime detainees from the Civil War and World War II to the War on Terror.

This book critically and comparatively examines the responses of the United Nations and a range of countries to the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. It assesses the convergence between the responses of Western democracies including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Canada with countries with more experience with terrorism including Egypt, Syria, Israel, Singapore and Indonesia. A number of common themes - the use of criminal law and immigration law, the regulation of speech associated with terrorism, the review of the state's whole of government counter-terrorism activities, and the development of national security policies - are discussed. The book provides a critical take on how the United Nations promoted terrorism financing laws and listing processes and the regulation of speech associated with terrorism but failed to agree on a definition of terrorism or the importance of respecting human rights while combating terrorism.

The United States admits between 700,000 and 900,000 legal immigrants per year, plus millions of long- and short-term visitors, including tourists, business travelers, and students. It is much easier to become a citizen in our country than in virtually an