Case Facts: Yaser Esam Hamdi

POL 201 Week 5 Final Paper Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, and the War on Terror

Summary (facts) of case: Hamdi v. Rumsfeld was case brought to the United States which began in April 28, 2004. Hamdi was born in 1980. Originally residing in Louisiana where he was born, making him a United States citizen, he later moved with his family to Saudi Arabia. At the age of twenty Hamdi traveled for his first time to Afghanistan where he was working. Hamdi was later caught by the Afghan group "Northern Alliance" and was handed to the U.S. Hamdi was sent to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba because the United States thought that Yaser Esam Hamdi was

However, to this day only one individual involved in the widespread clandestine torture of secret detainees in the War on Terror has been imprisoned, although for releasing information in 2007 confirming the illegal waterboarding of prisoners . The law has changed as a result of Barack Obama’s executive order, which has made the limitations on the extent to which a U.S. official can use force to much more stringent limitation, but is also not permanent. Additionally, while much of the legality of these acts by the CIA were questioned as they do not follow Article One, Section 9 of the Constitution “habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it, " defense has rested on the requirement of torture in order to maintain public safety- despite the aforementioned criticisms of it’s practical use in obtaining

Constitution, to be protected by the 5 th Amendment Due Process clause, which “forbids the Government to "depriv[e]" any "person ... of ... liberty…without due process of law."”(Zadvydas, III(A)) is absolutely crucial to maintaining a fair, evenhanded administration of justice by the U.S. courts system. The U.S. Supreme Court took this into consideration when deciding Zadvydas v. Davis (2001), in which plaintiff argued that a law regulating the lengthy detention process applied to ‘deportable’ aliens whose deportation/reception arrangements were still pending violated his right to Due Process. This will be discussed in depth later. But the case was not based on constitutional issues, rather it focused on statutory laws that define the complex procedures for holding and deporting aliens. Before an analysis of the legal reasoning used to decide Zadvydas can be appropriately understood, one must receive a brief overview of exactly how and why this case applies to Attorney General John Ashcroft’s ability to indefinitely detain ‘suspected terrorists’ at Guantanamo Bay.

As Nelson Mandela once said, “To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.” Guantánamo bay, Cuba is the home of the oldest U.S naval station base out of the continental U.S. The United States invaded Guantánamo bay and established a base during the Spanish-American war (“Guantanamo...” 2008, par. 2). After the attack on the twin towers on September 11, 2001, the base’s mission expanded to include the Detainee Mission of the War of Terror (“Guantanamo…” 2008, par. 5). Many issues have risen because of this detention facility. The detainees held at the facility have to and had to face many challenges. The government took away their human rights and treats these detainees very harshly. Currently, there are still detainees held at Guantánamo bay. However, some actions have occurred to stop these inhumane actions, but there have not been enough to close the facility down.

The attacks on the World Trade Center, and the Pentagon on September 11th, 2001, changed the government views on individual freedoms forever. The increase in government legislation and power led to an escalation in the attack in individual freedoms. Laws changed that expanded civil forfeiture, domestic eavesdropping, and mass collection of private phone data. The detainment of civilians by military forces and the targeting of American citizens by drones in foreign countries is common practice by the US government. The individual’s rights are now secondary as the United States fights a war on a jihadist ideology. As mentioned earlier the term war evokes fear and concern for the wellbeing of the public, the devastation and death that occurred is a justification to declare war on the factions that claimed responsibility for the events of 9/11. The specter of the lone wolf, the threat of bombing, or possibility of a coordinated attack, become the motivation for the government to violate the First, Fourth, and the Fifth Amendment with impunity.

After these revelations, public outrage led to investigations of CIA enhanced interrogation methods in USA detainment camps, and questions erupted regarding the legality of indefinite detention of enemy combatants. In July of 2004, The Supreme Court decided Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, ruling that detainees have the right to challenge their detainment and the charges brought against them – but the court did not go so far to say that detainees would have access to the traditional court system. Instead, the military was given the right to try detainees through Combat Status

The creation of Guantanamo Bay served the multiple purposes to detain suspected terrorist, to collect probable Intelligence, and to protect citizens from possible further terrorist attacks perpetrated by the detained individuals. The creation of the GTMO detention facilities were born out a perceived necessity to strengthen the United States’ national security after the tragic events of September 11, 2001. However, throughout Guantanamo Bay’s duration as a strategic level detention facility GTMO has fallen under vast amounts of criticism levied from all corners of the world. With the imminent closure of the detention centers at Guantanamo Bay, the closure underlines the bigger issue that a legal alternative

Many may not know this but following his inauguration, President Obama did put in some orders to basically just shut down the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay within one year. However, about two years later, nevertheless, Obama's plan to close Guantanamo is in disasters. In excess of 180 prisoners that still remain at Guantanamo, and new legislation is making it tremendously problematic to transfer extra prisoners from the naval base. Defense Secretary Robert Gates lately named the forecasts for conclusion "very, very low," and the management is trying to press forward with new military command trials that are at the base. In a lot of different ways, the United States is actually further from closing Guantanamo now than it was after Obama's inauguration. However, if we go back to the Bush years, we will discover that actually right after the U.S. attack of Afghanistan in 2001, the Bush administration had started developing a plan for holding and questioning apprehended prisoners. Most of these prisoners were then sent to a prison that was inside a U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, which happened to be on land that had been rented from the supervision of Cuba. Ever since 2002, over 800 men were held as prisoners at "GITMO." A Most have been let go deprived of charges or revolved to other administrations. In 2011, Congress exactly forbade the spending of reserves to transfer GITMO detainees to imprisonment amenities which are in the mainland

The Government arrested Hamdi in Afghanistan, when his military unit gave up in late 2001.The government alleges that Hamdi was a close associate with Taliban and Al Qaeda. After incarceration with other captives in Guantanamo Bay, the military later learned that, Hamdi was born in Louisiana, Making him a United States citizen. However, he had grown in Middle East. The court granted him counsel on February 4, 2004, though Hamdi alleges that the court denied him the opportunity

In response to the September 11 attacks on US soil, the US entered into a military operation in Afghanistan in an aim to dismantle both terrorist group al-Qaeda and the Taliban government who had sheltered them. Consequently the US began to round up hundreds of suspected terrorists, a large number of whom were captured by Pakistani forces or bounty hunters who were subsequently paid large sums of money. The US military requested a new facility to hold these men, so they could be kept out of the warzone for the remainder of the war and interrogated. Guantanamo Bay was chosen as the location for this new facility for one important reason – it was believed to be a ‘legal black hole.’ US administrators at the time believed that, as detainees’ were-non-US citizens, being held outside of US territory, they could not petition their detention in US courts. Amnesty International, a prominent human rights group have explicit stated “The decision to transfer detainees to this base was with the blatant intention to avoid operating inside of the law.” (Amnesty International, n.d.) Biased as Amnesty International may be against the US government, this source is representative of the position of many human rights groups on the legality of Guantanamo Bay. This position is corroborated by the International Bar Association, a legal group, who have said in a report “The US administration clearly intended for Guantanamo Bay to have no legal oversight and few legal constraints, to allow for the maximum gathering of intelligence from the detainees.” (International Bar Association, 2009) Explicit in both of these sources is a controversial accusation – that the US government deliberately avoided upholding it’s own laws in the operation of Guantanamo Bay. This implies that the US were planning

National security in the United States is more significant than ever before. With recent terrorist attacks in Europe, the Middle East, and within the United States, politicians as well as citizens have questioned how safe the country is compared to prior to the events of September 11th, 2001. The opening of the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base as a detention facility in 2002, serve the purpose of housing suspected terrorists and criminals that were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. These criminals included suspected member of the Islamic fundamentalist faction, the Taliban, and those thought to be responsible, members of al-Qaeda. However, throughout the nine years that it served as a detention facility, it was under extreme scrutiny, controversy, and ethical and legal dilemmas over the treatment of the prisoners.

This paper will highlight the Habeas Corpus, the war on terror and how the Bush administration detained prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp (GITMO), a prison contained on a naval base that was built on land leased from Cuba. These prisoners’ rights and civil liberties were violated, and because they were detained in a facility beyond the jurisdiction of the U.S. constitution, the Bush Administration has not been brought to justice. The Supreme Court should have been required to protect the civil rights of the prisoners and the GITMO facility should have been dismantled.

The government has often engaged in the suspension of habeas corpus in times of wars and insurrections. This practice is by no means new, and goes back as far as the Civil War. An analysis of this practice shows that it is, at best, a short term measure. In the recent past, the US Supreme Court took up this topic in the context of the war on terrorism, and their findings-and the analysis that support those findings-reinforces this position.

Even though habeas corpus looks to be limited to detainees classified as enemy combatants and/or illegal enemy combatants, it eventually puts all citizens at risk. The War against Terrorism is clearly not a conventional war and the terrorist enemy is not readily apparent. Activities ranging from political activism, internet usage to travel can raise red flags to security and intelligence officers putting anyone, however innocent, under the national security microscope. Furthermore, because of the religious and racial factors involved in the Middle Eastern terrorism scare since 9/11, certain minority populations are more likely to be targeted for government action, whether it is justified or not. The implication is that this war will be fought internally as much as abroad, making everyone a potential suspect that could be