I'm Lee Rowland.

From the ACLU, this is At Liberty, the podcast where we discuss today's most pressing civil rights and civil liberties issues.

Today, the War on Terror, the Forever War, and Guantanamo Bay.

This September 11th marked 17 years since the largest terror attack on U.S. soil and our

nation's political response to that tragedy. The war on terror has dominated America's

foreign policy, military priorities, and human rights record ever since. Perhaps no place

on earth is a better symbol of that war than the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In 2009, President

Obama signed an executive order trying to close it, and earlier this year, President Trump signed

an executive order to keep it open.

Forty prisoners remain there today.

What does the continued existence of Guantanamo say about the rule of law since 9-11?

Here to help us answer that is Hina Shamsi, the director of the ACLU's National Security

Project.

Hina has represented CIA torture victims and

Guantanamo Bay detainees and has, unfortunately, had a close-up view of what's gone horribly

wrong in America's War on Terror. Hina, that downer of an intro notwithstanding, thank you for being

here. My pleasure, despite the downer of an introduction.

So let's start with Guantanamo. I think it's fair to say it's faded a bit to the backburner of our

political conversation. Why should people still care about Guantanamo and the 40 men that stay there? You know, it's a really good question,

and let's start with both what Guantanamo is and what it represents. So Guantanamo began back in 2002

when President Bush authorized the transfer there of multiple men, and it came to hold

about 800 men, 779 men.

...