Extrajudicial prisoners of the United States, in the context of the early twenty-first century War on Terrorism, refers to foreign nationals the United States detains outside of the legal process required within United States legal jurisdiction. In this context, the U.S. government is maintaining torture centers, called black sites, operated by both known and secret intelligence agencies. Such black sites were later confirmed by reports from journalists, investigations, and from men who had been imprisoned and tortured there, and later released after being tortured until the CIA was comfortable they had done nothing wrong, and had nothing to hide.
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison within the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, also referred to as Gitmo, on the coast of Guantánamo Bay in Cuba. As of April 2023, of the 779 people detained there since January 2002 when the military prison first opened after the September 11 attacks, 740 had been transferred elsewhere, 30 remained there, and nine had died while in custody.
No Longer Enemy Combatant (NLEC) is a term used by the U.S. military for a group of 38 Guantanamo detainees whose Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) determined they were not "enemy combatants". None of them were released right away. Ten of them were allowed to move to the more comfortable Camp Iguana. Others, such as Sami Al Laithi, remained in solitary confinement.
The Center for Constitutional Rights has coordinated efforts by American lawyers to handle the habeas corpus, and other legal appeals, of several hundred of the Guantanamo detainees.
"Enhanced interrogation techniques" or "enhanced interrogation" was a program of systematic torture of detainees by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and various components of the U.S. Armed Forces at remote sites around the world—including Bagram, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and Bucharest—authorized by officials of the George W. Bush administration. Methods used included beating, binding in contorted stress positions, hooding, subjection to deafening noise, sleep disruption, sleep deprivation to the point of hallucination, deprivation of food, drink, and medical care for wounds, as well as waterboarding, walling, sexual humiliation, rape, sexual assault, subjection to extreme heat or extreme cold, and confinement in small coffin-like boxes. A Guantanamo inmate's drawings of some of these tortures, to which he himself was subjected, were published in The New York Times. Some of these techniques fall under the category known as "white room torture". Several detainees endured medically unnecessary "rectal rehydration", "rectal fluid resuscitation", and "rectal feeding". In addition to brutalizing detainees, there were threats to their families such as threats to harm children, and threats to sexually abuse or to cut the throat of detainees' mothers.
Semiannually, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) publishes an unclassified "Summary of the Reengagement of Detainees Formerly Held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba". According to ODNI's most recent Reengagement Report, since 2009, when current rules and processes governing transfer of detainees out of Guantanamo were put in place, ODNI assess that 5.1% of detainees – 10 men total, 2 of whom are deceased – are more likely than not to have reengaged in terrorist activities.
Kristine Huskey is an American lawyer. Huskey is notable because she volunteered to help defend Guantanamo detainees. Huskey is the author of "Standards and Procedures for Classifying "Enemy Combatants": Congress, What Have You Done?"
Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu is a citizen of Kenya currently held in administrative detention in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. He was born in Busia, Uganda, but has Kenyan citizenship. Abdul Malik was captured in February 2007, on suspicion of leading a terrorist bomb-plot in Mombasa. He was transferred to Guantanamo on 26 March 2007. Abdul Malik is a confirmed member of the East Africa al-Qaeda network as well as a confirmed member of the Council of Islamic Courts and the Islamic Part of Kenya. He "actively participated" in the facilitation of weapons and the planning of terrorist acts against the U.S., according to the Joint Task Force (JTF) at Guantanamo Bay. He was recommended for continued detention under the Department of Defense's control. The JTF gave Abdul Malik a high risk threat against the United States' interests and allies. He has no reports of disciplinary infractions as of May 22, 2007, granting him a low detention risk value. Abdul Malik does, however, have a high intelligence value.
Scott Horton is an American attorney known for his work in human rights law and the law of armed conflict, as well as emerging markets and international law. He graduated Texas Law School in Austin with a JD and was a partner in a large New York law firm, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler. He "has advised sovereigns on the pursuit of kleptocratic predecessors." In April 2007, he joined Harper's Magazine as a legal affairs and national security contributor, and he currently authors the No Comment blog at Harper's Online. Horton has also written for The American Lawyer, and The Daily Beast and has been interviewed on Antiwar Radio. and the John Batchelor Show.
Shayana D. Kadidal is an American lawyer and writer. Kadidal has worked at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City since 2001, and is senior managing attorney of the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative there, coordinating legal representation for the captives held in extrajudicial detention in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. Previously a writer on patent, drug and obscenity law, since 2001 he has played a role in various notable human rights cases, including:
Andrea J. Prasow is an American attorney and global human rights advocate. She leads The Freedom Initiative, a U.S.-based organization whose mission is "to bring international attention to the plight of political prisoners in the Middle East and advocate for their release." Prasow was appointed as The Freedom Initiative's executive director in November 2021.
Indefinite detention is the incarceration of an arrested person by a national government or law enforcement agency for an indefinite amount of time without a trial. The Human Rights Watch considers this practice as violating national and international laws, particularly human rights laws, although it remains in legislation in various liberal democracies.
Matthew Glen Olsen is an American attorney who has served as the Assistant Attorney General for the National Security Division since 2021. He is the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center.
Matthew Curtis Waxman is an American law professor at Columbia University and author who held several positions during the George W. Bush administration. He is also currently a Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace.
Robert M. "Bobby" Chesney is an American lawyer and the Dean of the University of Texas School of Law. He is the Charles I. Francis Professor in Law and was the associate dean for academic affairs before becoming the dean. Chesney teaches courses relating to U.S. national security and constitutional law. He is also the director of the Strauss Center for International Security and Law. Chesney addresses issues involving national security and law, including matters relating to military detention, the use of force, terrorism-related prosecutions, the role of the courts in national security affairs and the relationship between military and intelligence community activities. He is a co-founder and contributor along with Benjamin Wittes and Jack Goldsmith to the Lawfare Blog. He also co-hosts The National Security Law Podcast with fellow Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck.
Karl R. Thompson is an American lawyer and was the Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel of the United States Department of Justice from 2014 until 20 January 2017; he served as the Acting Assistant Attorney General during that period.
Thomas Anthony Durkin is a criminal defense attorney in Chicago. He specializes in civil rights and domestic terrorism cases.
