310: Habeas Schmabeas
Mar 10, 2006
Winner of a 2006 Peabody Award. We've also broadcast an updated version of this episode, "Habeas Schmabeas 2007."
Listen to a special, uncut version.
Download a transcript.
Listen to a special, uncut version.
Download a transcript.
The right of habeas corpus has been a part of our country's legal tradition longer than we've actually been a country. It means that our government has to explain why it's holding a person in custody. But now, the War on Terror has nixed many of the rules we used to think of as fundamental. At Guantanamo Bay, our government initially claimed that prisoners should not be covered by habeas—or even by the Geneva Conventions—because they're the most fearsome enemies we have. But is that true? Is it a camp full of terrorists, or a camp full of our mistakes?
- Jack Hitt explains how President Bush's War on Terror changed the rules for prisoners of war and how it is that under those rules, it'd be possible that someone whose classified file declares that they pose no threat to the United States could still be locked up indefinitely—potentially forever!—at Guantanamo. (26 minutes).
Clarification: When Seton Hall professor Baher Azmy discusses the classified file of his client, Murat Kurnaz, he is referring to information that had previously been made public and published in the Washington Post. That material has subsequently been reclassified.
