Lakhdar Boumedienne: My Gitmo Nightmare

[Winehole23]

I just don't see this as a political issue, but rather mistakes made by the people who placed him there.

mistakes made by US officials can become a political problem, but you're right, most people are pretty blase about what their government does every day.

[baseline bum]

LOL...

I just don't see this as a political issue, but rather mistakes made by the people who placed him there. I'm not concerning myself over this one. Again, I will say it's not the policies made that I fear as much as the corrupt people who control the buttons. I see no used in bringing this up without discussing solutions. A start might be to hold the people accountable that were unable to show cause to keep him there when it was demanded by the courts.

I don't have a problem with Gitmo. However, like any tool, corrupt people in power will abuse it.

@ the idea that habeas corpus isn't one of the most critical parts of being able to hold accusers accountable.

[Winehole23]

the changing legal landscape:

In Boumediene v. Bush,[1] the Supreme Court famously held that the writ of habeas corpus, guaranteed by the Suspension Clause,[2] had “full effect” at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.[3] But Boumediene did not specify how other cons utional rights, such as the writ’s oftentimes-inextricable partner, the Due Process Clause,[4] should influence the analysis. After Boumediene, the D.C. Circuit maintained that habeas only protected the fact, place, or duration of detention,[5] and it expressly refused to apply due process to extraterritorial habeas challenges.[6] It also strictly enforced the categorical dichotomy prescribed by the Military Commissions Act (MCA), which restored federal habeas jurisdiction but stripped jurisdiction over “any other action . . . relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement” of detainees.[7] Indeed, after almost ten years of litigation, many commentators condemned the D.C. Circuit for practically vitiating Boumediene’s holding.[8]


But in Aamer v. Obama[9]—brought to enjoin the physically invasive force-feeding procedures used against hunger strikers at Guantanamo[10]—the D.C. Circuit recently held that a habeas suit can be brought to challenge more than the fact, place, or duration of detention.[11] Substantially broadening its previous interpretation of the writ, the D.C. Circuit ruled that habeas jurisdiction can encompass challenges to conditions of confinement—one of the “other action[s]” proscribed by the MCA. Even though the detainees’ claim failed on the merits, the detainees were ultimately permitted to challenge the government’s procedures as an unlawful violation of the right against unwanted medical treatment.


In effect, Aamer creates an interesting paradox: despite the D.C. Circuit’s decisions ruling otherwise, noncitizen detainees at Guantanamo are effectively allowed to bring due process challenges, but under the au es of habeas corpus. Further exploring the habeas-due process relationship in prior case law and scholarship, this Essay will consider this paradox as applied in Aamer and future prisoner litigation.

http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/onl...or-due-process