This is why the legal technicalities are irrelevant. The President has the ultimate bully pulpit, and it sure ain't getting used on Gitmo.
Please don't tell me that it's a reasonable (legally or ethically) argument for keeping them imprisoned for decades.
Gitmo is already shockingly illegal or dangerously unethical; I don't see any interest by the US government to end it and take some of the heat for that.
If a guy like Nixon can get a pardon so that the country can move forward, then we can certainly do the same for whatever ahats are culpable for setting up Gitmo in the first place. Pardon the military and politicians responsible for their misguided patriotism and then start treating these unfortunate souls like humans again as one small step towards making the US live up to its lofty ideals again.
Look up "sovereign immunity".
I am, frankly, surprised that that nobody in the House has offered articles of impeachment so far. (checks) Well almost, but it died q uiet death in the House Judiciary committee: http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c112:H.CON.RES.107:
This is one of those cases where only Nixon can go to China.
1. Assassination American citizens without trial (drone program)
2. War in Libya without congressional approval.
Are you saying that the president should have authority to order spending of non-government money?
You have not charged them with any crimes for the past 10 years and have not put them on trials. The problem is not the location of the prison. The problem is you are shitting on Habeas corpus.
They shouldn't be in any detention center – there is no legal reason to detain them.
They would immediately try take legal action against the American administration through any and every international court available. Having been detained without sufficient evidence there is a case to answer, the US and their cohorts (let us not forget that several governments including ours in the UK have been shown to be complicit in rendition actions that deliberately circumvented international law) can't try ignore the issue with the "enemy combatants" and other such reasons without looking like complete hypocrites given how loud they shout when someone they care to defend is detained without what they consider to be sufficient evidence (Iran holding several naval officers for instance). Even more embarrassing: some of the people they are refusing to let go home to face/demand their own country's justice are American - they don't even want their own legal system anywhere near this.
tl;dr: Just letting them go would certainly not be cost free, financially or in terms of local and/or international reputation.
Right now they still have "enemy combatant status" and are not in a position where they can push their defence any further or be helped by their own governments and/or legal systems (if said systems would in fact help: some would, some wouldn't). If they were freed without charge then they have a case for unfair detainment (where now any such claim will be replied to with "they haven't been charged yet, that might change") and if they were charged there would be something for them to try make a case against (where now it is someone's un-evidenced word against their's, neither side having much legal standing so the people holding the keys "win").
That totally ignores my immediate 'citation needed' urges and my shock about this opinion.
I believe there is a wide variation within those imprisoned: some are innocent and were captured by mistake or worse (e.g. rivals were turned in by jealous neighbours, or whatever), others are actually hardened fanatics. And it is very difficult to know who is what.
We're "protecting them" by keeping them locked up forever without charges?
This kind of moral prevarication disgusts me. You disgust me.
As far as I understand, this is quite a real problem: no country is willing to receive most of these prisoners, except countries to which the U.S. cannot reasonably send them. Public opinion in the U.S. is hostile towards accepting them as refugees. A few have been placed to Palau, because sending them home to China would be bad and Palau is in no position to refuse such a request. Is that fair? Hardly.
In the U.S., lots of people in principle like to close Gitmo but in practice want the prisoners go to somewhere else, not settle as their own neighbours.
Sorry, I don't have good advice for what to do.
Also, this definitely isn't hacker news but I'm glad it was brought to my attention anyway.
Refugee status was invented for such people.
There's always the nuclear option: threaten to release the detainees if Congress doesn't provide funding for another solution.
There is no nuclear option. Veto is not an option.
What people don't seem to understand is that this isn't a failure of democracy to act: this is what the American people want. We don't care that Guantanamo is open and we'd rather see it stay open than give these people a chance at a fair trial.
We are a government by the people, of the people, and the people have spoken.
Alas.
The fundamental civil liberties protections of the Bill of Rights and Constitution apply to all “persons,” not just citizens. For example, every person in the United States has the right to due process and equal protection; to criminal proceedings that afford a right to counsel, a jury trial and freedom from double jeopardy; to freedom from cruel and unusual punishment; to freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and to freedom of speech, religion and association.
http://www.aclupa.org/issues/immigrantsrights/animmigrationg...
Now, the Supreme Court has decided that Congress has de facto legislative jurisdiction over Guantanamo (in an opinion comparing the historical treatment of Scotland, in which English habeas rights did not apply, to Ireland, in which they did): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boumediene_v._Bush.
Scalia's dissent was the most legally sensible: 'Justice Scalia added that the Court's majority "admits that it cannot determine whether the writ historically extended to aliens held abroad, and it concedes (necessarily) that Guantanamo Bay lies outside the sovereign territory of the United States."[27] Justice Scalia pointed out that Johnson v. Eisentrager (where the Supreme Court decided that U.S. courts had no jurisdiction over German war criminals held in a U.S.-administered German prison in China) "thus held—held beyond any doubt—that the Constitution does not ensure habeas for aliens held by the United States in areas over which our Government is not sovereign.'
But the Court stopped short of saying that foreigners in Guantanamo have the same habeas rights as U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, probably because of the strained nature of their conclusion that they had any habeas rights at all.
What it means now? Who knows.
You need funding to keep Gitmo going too. I seriously doubt that would be a problem.
As every American should know, Congress holds the purse strings here and has denied said request. The President has no power here.