Tag: detention

America’s big mistake on indefinite detention of terror suspects

DEC 28, 2011

The approval of indefinite detention of terror suspects by Congress and Obama maintains the premise that because of exigent circumstances, civil rights and civil liberties must be curbed. This is much like the argument used for decades from Cairo to Damascus.

From Tunis to Athens to Moscow to Wall Street, 2011 has been about dispatching with old ways and rulers, or at the very least, putting them on notice that business as usual is no longer acceptable.

Yet as the year hurtles toward its end, the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has President Obama and Congress standing in stark contrast to that global momentum by ossifying the mistaken ways of what should be a former era.  [full story]

Unlawful Detention on U.S. Soil

DEC 22, 2011

When his wfie and children arrived to visit Shukri Abu-Baker at the secretive federal prison known as a Communications Management Unit (CMU) in Terre Haute, Indiana, this past fall, they were forced to sit in silence and stare at him through Plexiglass. The twin phones on either side of the partition wouldn’t work. They raised their voices to be able to hear each other, but the guards immediately told them to stop. Their communications, after all, had to be recorded and monitored live by someone in Washington, DC.

The Abu-Bakers had scheduled their visit over a month in advance. The Federal Board of Prisons (BOP) knew they were coming. The family made the fifteen-hour trip from Dallas to Terre Haute in a rented van, spending a total of $2,000 so they could spend eight hours that weekend seeing and talking to Shukri.  [full story]