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The detainees, whom the Justice Department declined to identify at the request of the government of Slovakia, arrived there on Sunday. There are still 193 detainees at the Guantanamo prison. The Slovak foreign ministry said last week that it would take the three detainees under an EU-U.S. agreement aimed at helping President Barack Obama close the controversial prison. His January 22 deadline to shutter it passed unmet.

Populist or professor? Contrite or uncompromising? President Obama will have a chance Wednesday to reintroduce himself to the nation when he delivers his first official State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress. The prime-time speech, which will be aired on all major TV networks and cable stations, could hardly come at a more critical time for a president grappling with double-digit unemployment, sinking poll numbers and the possible collapse of his top domestic policy priority, an overhaul of the nation's health-care system. "As often as the president has spoken over the past year, critics on the...

You may remember that more than two months ago, amid the controversy over the Obama administration's decision to grant full American constitutional rights to, and hold a civilian trial for, accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley asked Attorney General Eric Holder about Justice Department lawyers who before joining the Obama/Holder team had represented Guantanamo detainees or worked for groups representing them. Grassley pointed to one high-ranking Obama Justice official who formerly represented Osama bin Laden's driver and another who works on detainee issues despite previous advocacy for detainees. "This prior representation, I think, creates a conflict...

As the anniversary of the deadline set by President Barack Obama to close the controversial prison passed, a task force led by the US justice department reached a decision that infuriated civil liberties groups and will bring accusations that the president is aping George W Bush's war on terror policies. The administration believes their continued detention - justified because they are too dangerous to be released though the evidence against them is too weak to secure a conviction - is legal because Congress authorised the use of force against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Remember this? President Barack Obama signs a series of executive orders, Jan. 22, 2009, pertaining to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, as retired generals and admirals look on in the Oval Office of the White House. Obama ordered the closure of the camp and banned the use of controversial CIA interrogation techniques.Oh yeah, Obama was really serious about closing Gitmo in one year!And let's not forget that Obama banned the CIA's enhanced interrogation techniques while promising he would create a new unit designed to handle these high value detainees. Read more at floppingaces.net ...

WASHINGTON — President Obama signed executive orders Thursday directing the Central Intelligence Agency to shut what remains of its network of secret prisons and ordering the closing of the Guantánamo detention camp within a year, government officials said.The orders, which are the first steps in undoing detention policies of former President George W. Bush, rewrite American rules for the detention of terrorism suspects. They require an immediate review of the 245 detainees still held at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to determine if they should be transferred, released or prosecuted. ...snip...The order on Guantánamo says that the camp,...

Following a firestorm of opposition, the alderman sponsoring a resolution to bring a Guantanamo detainee to Newton says he will ask his colleagues tonight not to vote on the measure. "It doesn’t need to advance any further this evening until we are one mind about it," said Aldermen Steve Linsky. The resolution, sponsored by Linsky and Ted Hess-Mahan, has sparked opposition from local residents and some Newton politicians, who say the city has more important, local concerns to address.

Dear Friend, Earlier this month I travelled to the Naval Air Station at Guantanamo Bay for the fourth time to visit the detention center there. This trip, and the briefings I received, strengthened my view that the prison must close. The current facility is state-of-the-art and the prisoners have habeas corpus rights, are assisted by legal teams and receive regular visits by the Red Cross; all at great expense to the American taxpayer. Yet most of the world still sees the prison as a harsh complex of chicken-wire cages deliberately established beyond the reach of the law. That black eye...

Top administration officials are getting nervous that they may not be able to proceed with one of their most controversial national-security moves: trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other accused 9/11 conspirators in federal court in New York City. Last November Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. portrayed the trial as a way to showcase the American justice system to the world and to accelerate President Obama's stalled plans to shut down the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay. But because of shifting political winds in Congress, the trial is now "potentially in jeopardy," a senior official, who did not want to...

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Does his stubborn prosecution of Guantanamo imprisoned terrorists in New York City -- a mere few blocks from 9-11's Ground Zero -- speak volumes about his ignorance of the true nature of the threat of terrorism? Or is there a hidden agenda at work within his Justice Department? When asked about his motives for not allowing the military justice system to try Gitmo detainees, Holder and his supporters blame President George W. Bush's failure to try Gitmo terrorists in the so-called military tribunals. However, the real reason there were so few military trials was that lawyers were continuously working to...

New York (AP) - A lawyer asked a judge Monday to toss out charges against the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to be brought to civilian courts, saying he was tortured for 14 hours over five days and denied trial for nearly five years. Attorney Peter Enrique Quijano told U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan that Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani's right to a speedy trial was violated when he was sent after his July 2004 arrest to a secret CIA-run interrogation camp abroad rather than to the U.S. for a civilian trial.

5. Ditch ObamaCare, PelosiCare and ReidCare: It’s not that we’re against health care reform but the current plans and shady backroom deals in the works are despotic. The proposed health care bills are clearly designed to pay back insurance companies, big pharmaceutical companies and others who have been overly generous to Obama and the Democratic Party. Tort reform and addressing litigation and damages aren’t on the table. Also missing: giving individuals the ability to opt out of “mandated benefits” and shop around for health care coverage. Polls show a lack of public support for the monopoly system. They show America’s...

A week from Friday is the deadline for emptying the terrorist detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, a cutoff that the newly inaugurated President Obama established as one of his first acts in office. No one seriously expects his administration to meet the deadline, and Huffpo’s Nathan Harvey wails that it may take yet another year to figure it out. “By all accounts we are not going to make it. In fact, the Obama administration has asked for another full year to do so.” So just what is happening? Well, if you listen to the left, it’s the fear-mongering from the...

Here's another reason why al Qaeda terrorists don't belong in US civilian courts: the right to a speedy trial. The lawyer for embassy bomber Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to receive a civilian trial, this week claimed that his client's years in detention violated his right to a timely adjudication of the case. He's demanding Ghailani's release. Insane? You betcha. But it's the predictable consequence of Team Obama's efforts to shoehorn Islamist cutthroats into a justice system that was never designed for them. Consider: POWs -- uniformed soldiers of a belligerent state -- can be legally held...

So here's a question for Mr. Obama. Suppose that five, heavily armed Islamic terrorists wearing suicide vests had been waiting for our TSA Einstein to leave his post. What then?

The Founding Bloggers article shows how INEPT the State of Illinois is in receiving terrorists from Gitmo. Maybe Obama ought to re-think this? These two headlines, both currently on Chicago Breaking News, should strike fear in your heart – unless you are a Progressive Democrat, in which case it will inspire denial. State panel votes in favor of Illinois Gitmo planThree federal prisoners escape downstate facilityImpeach the Democrats at the polls in 2010 UPDATE: The map below [found here] effectively illustrates why people in these parts are a tad concerned about the unfathomably reckless decision Obama’s Progressive government is making....

Via JWF, the canary in the coal mine keels over. In a ruling this week, U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan also said the government failed to establish that 23 statements the detainee made to interrogators at Guantanamo Bay were untainted by the earlier coerced statements made while he was held under harsh conditions in Afghanistan. However, the judge said statements he made during two military administrative hearings at the U.S. detention center in Cuba, where he was assisted by a personal representative, were reliable and sufficient to justify holding the detainee… The logical inference from the record, said the judge,...

WASHINGTON -- On Wednesday, Nigerian would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was indicted by a Michigan grand jury for attempted murder and sundry other criminal charges. The previous day, the State Department announced that his visa had been revoked. The system worked. Well, it did for Abdulmutallab. What he lost in flying privileges he gained in Miranda rights. He was singing quite freely when seized after trying to bring down Northwest Flight 253 over Detroit. But the Obama administration decided to give him a lawyer and the right to remain silent. We are now forced to purchase information from this attempted...

WASHINGTON — A federal judge has tossed out most of the government’s evidence against a terrorism detainee on grounds his confessions were coerced, allegedly by U.S. forces, before he became a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay.