Unit 3 NS

When the prisoners arrived in Cuba, they were labeled...

"enemy combatants."

11 September 2001:

19 men associated with al Qaeda participate in the attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a failed attack on the White House.

2003:

After arguing before the United Nations that Iraq (and its leader, Saddam Hussein) was dangerous to the world, harboring al Qaeda cells, and building weapons of mass destruction, the United States invades Iraq and topples Hussein's government.

What are the possible ethical issues of Gitmo?

Detainees can be held indefinitely under this system, since the War on Terror has no ending date (or no foreseeable end). Detainees are not tried by juries but by military commissions that are closed to the public. Detainees do not know what crimes or charges they are being held on.

20 May 2013:

Edward Snowden begins the process of leaking National Security Agency (NSA) information to the British newspaper The Guardian.

The Detainee Treatment Act does the following:

Expands the definition of "enemy combatant" to anyone who "purposefully and materially supports hostilities" or who has been declared a combatant by a military tribunal. This means that, under the law, U.S. citizens could also be declared enemy combatants. Gives the president the power to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Convention. Prohibits "grave breaches" of Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, which covers the treatment of prisoners of war. Stops detainees from filing lawsuits claiming violations under the Geneva Convention. Narrows the range of crimes under the War Crimes Act, which protects civilians from being prosecuted because of their behavior toward detainees.

Among other things, Snowden released information about how the NSA did the following:

Gathered almost all telephone records Requested user data from tech companies like Google Helped Great Britain tap fiber-optic communication cables Spied on 122 world leaders Created a program to allow it to search for everything a user does on the Internet Developed techniques and tricks for circumventing encryption Created an elite NSA hacking team Hacked the weak spot between Google and Yahoo's data centers Intercepted 200 million text messages Intercepted all of the phone calls in the Bahamas and Afghanistan

11 January 2002:

Guantanamo Bay is established as a detention center for "enemy combatants."

How did the United States respond to ethical questions about privacy?

In response, the U.S. Congress revised the Patriot Act in 2015 in favor of the U.S.A. Freedom Act. It overwhelmingly passed and changed many of the things that caused the most concern. Under the Freedom Act, the government is not allowed to collect metadata and a FISA warrant is required to collect information about a specific person from communications companies. The Freedom Act extends the roving wiretaps and the lone wolf surveillance option to December 2019, but it also created a panel to represent the public's interest in certain cases.

How did the United States respond to ethical issues related to the detention of military combatants?

Many human rights groups criticized the United States for its willingness to hold detainees for years without any charges or due process. Many of these groups helped detainees pursue their rights in the courts, as a way to check the power of the president and the Department of Defense (both part of the executive branch of government).

2002:

Members of the Bush administration write a series of memos discussing whether "enhanced interrogation" techniques are legal.

the Patriot Act tried to fix those problems by establishing the following:

More authority for law enforcement to monitor communications Regulatory powers to address foreign money laundering, or the transfer of money earned through illegal activities between legitimate businesses and banks into U.S. banks More restrictive borders to stop potential terrorists and the authority to find, detain, and remove terrorists on U.S. soil New crimes with new penalties New procedures for law enforcement to use against domestic and international terrorists

Equal Protection Under the Law

Part of the Fourteenth Amendment, this protection ensures that all people, regardless of their race, ethnicity or gender, receive the same constitutional protections.

Right to Privacy

Part of the Fourth Amendment and something the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted as an important right, the right to privacy assumes a person will not be forced to participate in an "unreasonable search and seizure" of their property or information (i.e., authorities have to demonstrate there's a reason to search property), and a person has the right to certain elements of privacy.

"Due Process of Law"

Several amendments to the U.S. Constitution cover these protections, which are at the heart of our legal system.

Some of the things most concerning to civil liberties groups were the following:

Sneak-and-peek searches: Authorities were permitted to search a location before the person who lived there knew about it, only telling the person later that a warrant had been served. Roving wiretaps: Authorities were allowed to add more wiretaps to an existing warrant rather than going back to a judge to get a new one. Lone-wolf provision: Authorities were given the power to investigate a single person of interest even if that person was not clearly connected to a terrorist group.

December 2001:

The International Security Assistance Force is formed by the United Nations to help stabilize the Afghan government.

28 December 2014:

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ends combat operations in Afghanistan, shifting security responsibility to the Afghan government.

2007:

The U.S. Congress passes an amendment to prevent any detainee from being transferred to U.S. soil.

2005:

The U.S. Congress passes the Detainee Treatment Act.

October 2006:

The U.S. Congress passes the Military Commissions Act.

November 2001:

The U.S. Congress passes the Patriot Act.

2 May 2011:

The U.S. Navy's Sea, Land, and Air teams (SEALs) kill Osama bin Laden.

November 2015:

The U.S. Senate passes the McCain-Feinstein anti-torture amendment after a four-year investigation into what happened at Guantanamo Bay.

2008:

The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Boumediene v. Bush that prisoners are entitled to a habeas corpus review in U.S. District Court.

29 June 2006:

The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that prisoners are entitled to protections under Article 3 of the Geneva Convention.

2004:

The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Rasul v. Bush that U.S. courts can rule on habeas corpus petitions.

The Military Commissions Act helps to clarify what the military commissions should do:

The president should establish such commissions with certain procedures in place. Enemy combatants should be prosecuted through such commissions. The president should interpret the Geneva Convention. The Combatant Status Review Tribunals should conduct a yearly review of all detainees to see if they should continue to be held, transferred to another country, or released. The rights of detainees to sue using the Geneva Convention as the basis for their claim should be eliminated.

Habeas corpus

This recourse in law is used to bring a prisoner or other detainee before the court to decide if imprisonment is legal; it prevents long-term, unfair incarceration. The U.S. Constitution allows this right to be temporarily suspended only "in cases of rebellion or invasion," when it's necessary for public safety, and only after the U.S. Congress passes the Suspension Clause.

26 September 2001:

U.S. Army Special Forces troops are on the ground in Afghanistan.

ethics

a code of good and bad behavior

Due Process of Law includes some of the following:

a fair trial and an impartial (or fair and just) jury the ability to face accusers and understand the charges the ability to compel (or require) witnesses to testify for the defendant representation assigned to the defendant when necessary no self-incrimination no excessive, cruel, or unusual fines or punishments no "double jeopardy," or trials for the same crime twice

How did the United States respond to ethical questions about interrogation techniques?

a four-year investigation by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was completed and a report was released. It determined that the torture inflicted upon those interrogated by the CIA and other agencies resulted in no helpful information. It determined that any information gained was either based on lies or things that had already been discovered through more traditional routes. The CIA denies this, saying that interrogation techniques did help stop terrorist attacks, capture terrorists (including Osama bin Laden, who was killed in 2011), and save lives. The United Nations has called for criminal penalties for those who were involved in this program. After this report was released, Senators John McCain and Dianne Feinstein sponsored the McCain-Feinstein anti-torture amendment. This amendment, which passed the U.S. Senate in late 2015, restricts interrogation techniques to those that are authorized in the Army Field Manual and that follow the Geneva Convention protocol. The amendment also requires the International Committee of the Red Cross to have access to any prisoners in custody. Senator McCain, who was himself a prisoner of war for years in Vietnam, felt that the interrogation policies used by the United States were a contradiction of our national values.

whistleblower

a person who goes public about an issue in order to resolve an injustice

al Qaeda

a radical Islamic group founded by Osama bin Laden in the late 1980s

As a result of many civil rights groups criticisms...

a series of court cases helped to establish certain rights for enemy combatants who were being held at Guantanamo Bay

precedence

a situation or court decision that is used as an example to resolve similar situations

torture

acts intended to cause serious physical, mental, or emotional pain to a detainee while in custody

The U.S. Congress passed both the Detainee Treatment Act (2005) and the Military Commissions Act (2006) to...

address some of these concerns. Both of these laws essentially provided legal support for what the United States was already doing with prisoners after 2001, with a few exceptions.

metadata

all of the information surrounding a phone call

Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane, Degrading Treatment or Punishment established a legal definition of "torture" for the world:

any intentional infliction of severe mental or physical suffering by a public official (either directly or indirectly involved) for a specific purpose

CIA Director Tenet was..

concerned the CIA agents following these orders could later be charged with war crimes and wanted some degree of protection

Camp Echo

currently holds maximum-security prisoners who remain in solitary confinement, those who are considered "high-value detainees," those facing military commissions, and those who will be meeting with lawyers

The United States and its allies had two main goals for Operation Enduring Freedom:

destroy al Qaeda and remove the Taliban so terrorist groups no longer had a safe place to hide

In 2004, two cases (Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Rasul v. Bush) established that...

detainees have the right to know why they are being held and classified as enemy combatants, the opportunity to challenge such detention in a neutral space, and the right to have their writ of habeas corpus case heard in federal court in Washington, D.C.

in 2002, Gitmo (as it is known to many) took on a new assignment:

detention center. A U.S. military prison was established to house detainees that the United States felt were important to fighting terrorists.

According to Article II of the U.S. Constitution...

enemy combatants can be detained for the duration of an armed conflict

Camp Iguana

formerly held the few minors who came to the camp early in the war and currently holds detainees who have been cleared to be transferred to another country

Japanese-American internment camps? That detention was the same sort of detention that was happening at Gitmo, with the same sort of goals:

gather intelligence from the POWs and prevent them from providing aid to the enemy

The fourth Supreme Court case to address detainee rights, Boumediene v. Bush, finally...

gave habeas corpus rights to all detainees

money laundering

he transfer of money earned through illegal activities between legitimate businesses and banks into U.S. banks

At one point, Guantanamo Bay...

housed more than 770 prisoners, and the secretary of defense described it as a place to detail very dangerous people, interrogate them in the best possible setting, and then prosecute them for war crimes

civil liberties

individual rights protected from government interference

the Enhanced Interrogation Program

officially ended in 2007, though some suggest that even now detainees are subjected to freezing cold cells and repeated interruptions to sleep as a way of wearing them down.

Within two weeks of the 9/11 attacks, U.S. Army Special Forces troops were...

on the ground in Afghanistan, where al Qaeda was given refuge by the Taliban government, which refused to submit bin Laden for extradition or to shut down terrorist camps

the Patriot Act

passed 45 days after the September 11, 2001, attacks, an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism passed in order to give law enforcement greater power to combat terrorism

Prisoners of war, by definition, are...

people in the custody of the enemy

in early 2002, soon after Guantanamo Bay was opened to detainees...

questions about what was appropriate began to be raised. Then Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director George Tenet forced the Justice Department to put into writing exactly what it would be allowed to do, what was legal, and what would be considered a war crime

In April 2004...

shocking pictures showing U.S. military personnel humiliating and abusing Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq, were released. Though the Bush administration suggested they were exceptions, the result of a few bad soldiers who had taken advantage of the situation and were subsequently tried, international human rights groups claimed this was actually what detainment facilities were like

Naval Station Guantanamo Bay

sits on one end of Cuba, facing the beautiful Guantanamo Bay. Initially established in 1903 as a fueling station, it now operates as a regional security outpost in the Caribbean, supporting Naval, Coast Guard, and Allied ships as well as supporting the Department of Homeland Security by taking care of people who are trying to escape their own countries

last-in-time rule

states that one of the benefits of an independent nation is the ability to decide how and when to comply with international laws and treaties.It also says that when the United States passes a law after it agrees to a treaty, that law is the latest expression of what the country wants to do.

Secretary of State Colin Powell argued...

that failing to protect the detainees under the Geneva Convention would cause worldwide consequences, especially with allies. Secretary Powell was right.

in a 2006 case, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled...

that the Geneva Convention did apply to this type of conflict and that the military commissions, as they were being handled in 2006, violated the restrictions the U.S. Congress had placed on military commissions based on the law of war and the Geneva Convention

By April 2003...

the Justice Department had approved 24 interrogation techniques, four of which were so stressful they needed the secretary of defense's specific approval before they were used

the court suggested that...

the Military Commissions Act and the Detainee Treatment Act were not sufficient legislation to eliminate that right, suggesting that keeping the right of habeas corpus from detainees would be a serious breach of basic liberty and justice

In 1987...

the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane, Degrading Treatment or Punishment was enacted, with the United States ratifying it in 1994

Operation Enduring Freedom

the combat operation in Afghanistan, started in early October 2001

The Bush administration interpreted the Geneva Convention in such a way that it did not apply to these prisoners because neither al Qaeda nor the Taliban was party to the Geneva Convention and because...

the conflicts were international

President George W. Bush argued that...

the country needed "new thinking in the law of war" since this war was so different. In early 2003, the memos suggested that Bush was not bound by international treaties (including those against torture) or by federal law because, as commander in chief, he could approve any technique needed to protect national security

Though the government argued that Guantanamo Bay was not on U.S. soil and thus constitutional protections did not extend to the prisoners...

the court disagreed

Edward Snowden

the former NSA employee caused quite a few people to raise ethical questions about the Patriot Act when he became a whistleblower, or a person who goes public about an issue in order to resolve an injustice. But this information wasn't normal—these leaks were top-secret details about how the Patriot Act allowed the government to legally spy on the public. in 2013

One of the key points of the Geneva Convention is...

the issue of torture

military commissions

the military version of a trial

Since 2008...

the numbers at Guantanamo Bay have dwindled significantly, with fewer than 100 detainees remaining today. More than 40, however, are considered too dangerous to release but lack enough evidence to try them for the crimes they are accused of having planned or committed. President Barack Obama committed to close Guantanamo Bay, but the detention facility remains open

extradition

the process by which one state or nation turns over a person who has been charged with a crime, after a formal request by another state or nation

Terrorism

the use of violence and intimidation to achieve political aims

Under the Geneva Convention, prisoners of war must be:

treated humanely; able to inform their family and the International Red Cross about their capture; allowed to correspond with relatives and receive relief packages; permitted to keep their clothes, feeding utensils, and personal effects; supplied with adequate food, clothing, and housing not smaller or worse than the housing of troops; given medical care; paid for work they do; sent home if they are found to be seriously ill or injured; released and sent home when the war ends.

Snowden has been charged...

under the 1917 Espionage Act and is on the run from those charges. Since that information has come to light, more than 60 percent of Americans believe there are not enough limits on the telephone and Internet data the government is permitted to collect.

The Department of Defense has admitted to...

using "stress and duress" tactics during this time, which might have included detainees being beaten up, kept in incredibly cramped quarters, being duct taped to stretchers, and kept in awkward positions for long periods of time. Other reports have suggested that the CIA and other intelligence agencies used "enhanced interrogation techniques," which may have included things such as sleep deprivation, ice water baths, being slammed into walls, confinement in coffin-like boxes, isolation, sensory deprivation, forced nudity, and cavity searches

the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) Torture Memoranda

writing exactly what it would be allowed to do, what was legal, and what would be considered a war crime, provide legal arguments that essentially get around the worldwide ban on torture. Written by John C. Yoo of the Justice Department, the memos argue that because the suspects were members (or suspected members) of al Qaeda or the Taliban, they were considered unlawful enemy combatants and therefore did not have protection under the Geneva Convention. These memos continued for nearly eight months, ultimately deciding that preventing another 9/11 was more important than applying the protections of the Geneva Convention.