Hey, it's Elsa Chang. Before we get to the show, there's an anniversary on Saturday that we wanted to shout out.

54 years ago, on May 3rd, 1971, a brand new outlet called National Public Radio went on the air with the very first episode of all things considered.

Listeners heard from a barber talking business in Iowa, poet Alan Ginsberg, and Vietnam War protesters in Washington, D.C.

More than a half century later, we're still considering all the things.

And your support makes it all possible.

It's the last day of public media giving days.

When you donate, you ensure that we can keep reporting the facts and bringing you stories that inform and inspire.

So visit donate.mpr.org to give. And thank you so much. Now to the show.

The U.S. has sent people it has detained. People, it says, are terrorists to a prison overseas.

And there is no end date.

The men are effectively detained indefinitely.

This is true in 2025.

And it was also true two decades ago.

I would characterize Montanamo Bay, Cuba, as the least worst place we could have selected.

Its disadvantages, however, seem to be modest relative to the alternatives.

That is former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, just three months after the 9-11 attacks,

announcing the plan to house captured Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters in a military prison at the

U.S. naval base in Guantanamo.

Ultimately, the U.S. would bring hundreds of people from many countries to Guantanamo.

15 remain at the prison today,

six of whom have never been charged with a crime. When the prison opened, Rumsfeld made a new legal argument for this indefinite foreign detention. It would be handled not as prisoners of wars

because they're not, but as unlawful combatants.

...