Four leading former interrogators and intelligence officials argue today that, "The use of waterboarding and other so-called 'enhanced' interrogation techniques almost certainly prolonged the hunt for Bin Laden and complicated the jobs of professional U.S. interrogators who were trying to develop useful information." Matthew Alexander, Colonel (ret.) Stuart A. Herrington,...

The first time I taught a one-hour class at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a 20-year-old student made it very clear that while he might be studying ethics, law and morality in school, it was practicalities that really concerned him.

"If we are kicking in doors in Iraq,"...

Among the handful of bombshells one can find in the cables that went back and forth between the U.S. State Department and embassy staff in Jakarta is this: the U.S. is apparently aware of evidence linking a high level Indonesian security official to the assassination of Munir Said Thalib,...

When the CIA asked President George W. Bush if they had the authority to waterboard suspected Al Qaeda operative Khalid Sheik Muhammed in 2003, President Bush did not hesitate. "Damn right!" the President now says his response was, according to reports about his forthcoming memoirs due to be...

A new book from a former political speech writer for President George Bush makes a number of wild claims in an effort to "correct the record" about the CIA enhanced interrogation program that featured the use of such "techniques" as waterboarding and slamming detainees' heads into walls. The book, Courting...

An army of political pundits is crying foul over the transfer of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to the federal criminal court system.

Transfer to the federal courts is a sure-fire way of "not making terrorists talk," The Wall Street Journal thundered today in an editorial, echoing similar...

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, 11/18/09 - Legal proceedings, such as they are, rumbled to life again today at Guantanamo Bay. Pre-trial issues in the case of Mohammed Kamin, an Afghan man who was captured by the U.S. in Afghanistan in 2003, were heard in a military commission courtroom on a...

Choosing a Court

More than seven years after U.S. forces picked up a 15-year-old boy in a remote Afghan town and accused him of throwing a grenade at a U.S. soldier, the U.S. government appears to be on the verge of deciding where to give him his day in court.

Have you heard of Ishmael? He is the bogeyman of Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen.

In his column today, Cohen says that Ishmael, a fictionalized "terrorist or a suicide bomber or anything you want" who the U.S. will capture one day, won't talk because the Obama administration has outlawed...

Earlier this month I sat in the observer box in an air-conditioned court room in Guantánamo Bay, wondering what it would be like if commission proceedings designed to try suspected terrorists lived up to the old U.S. Army recruiting slogan, "Be all you can be."

Could President Obama and...

David Danzig is at Guantanamo Bay this week observing military commissions.

Guantanamo Bay, July 15, 2009 --- Imagine for a moment that you are Richard Federico, the Navy Lieutenant charged with defending Mohammed Kamin, a man that the U.S. government has reportedly held at Guantánamo Bay since 2004 under charges...

David Danzig is at Guantanamo Bay this week observing military commissions.

Guantánamo Bay, July 16, 2009: At 1:40 PM the court room was prepared for motions to be heard against five men accused of plotting the 9/11 attacks, except that one of the detainees was talking with his attorney in...

Guantánamo Bay, July 15, 2009: As the Obama administration and Congress mull reinventing for the third time a legal system to try terrorism suspects, three hearings were held today at Guantánamo Bay in the military commission cases of Omar Khadr, Mohammed Kamin, and Ibrahim al Qosi.

The good news is...

Guantánamo Bay, July 14, 2009: Navy Captain John Murphy, the chief military prosecutor at Guantánamo Bay, announced today that military prosecutors were ready to proceed with cases against 66 of the more than 220 security detainees held at the naval facility in Guantánamo Bay.

Speaking to more than two dozen...

The stark contrast between real life at Guantanamo Bay, and the fantasy that has been built up around the so-called "hardened terrorists" who are housed there was brought into high relief this week.

On Monday, officials told the Associated Press that a 31-year-old Yemeni detainee -- Muhammmad Ahmad Abdallah...

According to Ali Soufan, an FBI interrogator, waterboarding and other "enhanced interrogation" procedures caused a key Al Qaeda operative to clam up, not provide actionable intelligence as former Vice President Dick Cheney and others have claimed.

Soufan provided gripping Senate testimony today. He related in detail how he was...

Soon after the Obama Administration released documents which showed that the CIA had used waterboarding hundreds of times on two high level Al Qaeda detainees, I received a phone call from former FBI Special Agent Joe Navarro.

"They would not have had to use the technique so many times if...

Too bad Senator Jay Rockefeller did not get a casting call for the 7th season of "24" (which is going on right now).

In this season, Jack Bauer - the hero of the program - is brought before a senate investigative committee for his use of torture. In one...

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Senior Bush administration officials - like former Vice President Dick Cheney - continue to insist that the use of abusive interrogation techniques like waterboarding has saved American lives.

I think statements like these are...

The Guardian published an interview on February 2 with Kiefer Sutherland that focuses on his perspectives on how torture is portrayed on 24 and the influence it has had on the views of its audience. Evidence collected by my organization (Human Rights First) and journalists show that...