American Civil Liberties Union

The United States is currently detaining hundreds of individuals indefinitely without charging them with a crime or providing them their day in court. Some are being held at Guantánamo, and others at the prison at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The administration has indicated that it intends to continue this policy, possibly on our own shores.

When we imprison people indefinitely without due process, we violate the most basic tenets of the American justice system, including the presumption of "innocent until proven guilty." While the government has the right, under the laws of war, to detain prisoners captured on the battlefield until the end of hostilities, the Bush and Obama administrations have defined their powers to do so far too broadly. They have used such authority to pick up and detain prisoners from around the globe who they deem engaged in the "war on terror," defining the entire world as a war zone. And because the "war on terror" will never come to a public, decisive end, the duration of the war is essentially forever, opening up the possibility that individuals could be detained for the rest of their lives without being given their due process rights. That is not American justice.

If there is reliable evidence against a detainee, he should be prosecuted in our federal courts, which are well-equipped to handle sensitive national security evidence while protecting fundamental rights. If no evidence exists for prosecution, detainees should be released or transferred to countries where they won’t be tortured. We must restore the rule of law and reclaim American values.

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