Federal officials are in Michigan today touring the Standish maximum security prison scheduled to close in October:

The officials are from the departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security. The prison is the only employer in the town. But the prison guards think their jobs would still be toast because the feds would bring in their own guards. There's also fear that the feds would seize some homes near the prison to expand the prison's perimeter.

Mustafa Setmariam Nassar, a Spanish citizen, has been reported by the media to have been forcibly seized in Pakistan in 2005 and turned over to U.S. Custody. He hasn't been heard from since.

The ACLU and other human rights groups are asking two U.N. Special Rapporteurs and the U.N. Working Group on Involuntary or Enforced Disappearances to investigate as their attempts have resulted in dead ends.

In June 2009, in response to an American Civil Liberties Union request for information about Nassar's whereabouts, the CIA stated that it could "neither confirm nor deny the existence or nonexistence of records" responsive to the request.

Although information about Nassar's disappearance is scarce, the known details suggest he was a victim of the unlawful "extraordinary rendition" program, which enabled the U.S., with the assistance of other governments, to kidnap and transport foreign nationals suspected of terrorism to secret overseas detention facilities for interrogation and torture.

The AP reports President Obama is considering moving detainees at Guantanamo to a maximum security prison in Michigan that state officials are planning to close or to Ft. Levenworth in Ks.

The facility would include both a courtroom for military tribunal trials and federal criminal court trials and a prison. But, the details also include:

Providing long-term holding cells for a small but still undetermined number of detainees who will not face trial because intelligence and counterterror officials conclude they are too dangerous to risk being freed.

Building immigration detention cells for detainees ordered released by courts but still behind bars because countries are unwilling to take them.

So there are two classes of detainees the Administration plans to keep detained without charges or trial or after acquittal or a court-ordered release. [More...]

In an effort to aid the closing of Guantanamo, Ireland has agreed to take two detainees. Ireland's Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform issued this statement yesterday.

During my time as Minister for Foreign Affairs, I was the first EU Minister to call for the closure of the detention facility. The Government has consistently called for its closure since then. In making this decision I am conscious of the intention of the United States to close the centre at Guantanamo Bay, in part by transferring detainees, no longer regarded as posing a threat to security but who cannot return to their own countries, to other countries willing to accept them."

[More...]

Bump and Update: The Judge in has granted Mohammed Jawad's habeas petition and ordered his release from Guantanamo and return to Afghanistan. The Obama Administration filed a proposed Writ of Habeas Corpus (pdf)last night agreeing to Mohammed Jawad's release in 22 days. The order the judge signed today is here. The ACLU's statement is here.

Does this mean they are giving up? It doesn't sound like it:

"We have informed the judge in this case that we will not contest the writ of habeas corpus and that we are not detaining Jawad in order to conduct a criminal investigation of his actions," Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller said in a statement last night. "Instead, we have informed the court that there are a number of steps the government must undertake to comply with Congressional reporting requirements before any transfer can take place. In the meantime, Department prosecutors are investigating whether they can make a criminal case against Jawad, an effort that is proceeding separate and apart from his habeas case. (my emphasis)

Today, the Judge advised the Government to think long and hard before charging Jawad. [More...]

Khaled Al-Mutairi, a Kuwaiti detainee held at Guantanamo for the past 8 years, was ordered released today by U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. Al-Mutairi was seized in Pakistan in 2001.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly ruled the Government has insufficient evidence to continue his detention and ordered him released. It's a final order, which means the Government can appeal. A declassified opinion should be issued within days.

Three more Kuwaitis remain in Guantanamo. All have been represented by David Cynamon of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman. Fawzi Al-Odah and Fouad Al Rabiah will receive habeas hearings in August, and Fayiz al-Kandari’s hearing is scheduled for September 2009.

Originally, there were 12. The U.S. released 8 back to Kuwait in 2005-2006. According to an email from the Kuwaiti Family Committee, upon their return to Kuwait, they were charged, tried and acquitted.

As a teenager, Mohammed Jawad may or may not have thrown the hand grenade that wounded two American servicemen in Kabul in 2002. That ambiguity doesn't excuse his deplorable mistreatment. Afghan officials tortured him until he confessed, then turned him over to American military authorities who abused him at Guantanamo, where he's been detained without trial.

In May of 2004, Jawad was subjected to what is euphemistically called the "frequent flyer" program. Jawad was moved repeatedly from cell to cell such that he was allowed no real time to sleep. This went on for roughly two weeks despite the fact that, as Jawad's military commission found, such tactics were already barred at Gitmo and Jawad had little to no intelligence value.

After seven years of detention in our names, a federal judge has said "enough." In response to her ruling, the Justice Department on Friday advised the court that Jawad would no longer be treated as a military detainee. [more ...]

President Obama asked his task force to provide a roadmap to closing Guantanamo by today. They didn't. The report has been delayed until the fall . Michael Isikoff reports:

The task force, set up on Obama's second day in office, was charged with preparing a report to the president by Tuesday, July 21, outlining a long-term detention plan for detainees captured in counterterrorism operations after Sept. 11. But continued debate within the task force over the legal basis for holding detainees who are not charged with any crimes—and where to house them once they are moved from Guantánamo—has forced the task force to postpone its report by a "few months," a senior administration official told NEWSWEEK.

The ACLU's response is here. Also being delayed: the task force report on interrogations of "high value detainees."

Glenn Greenwald highlights a superb piece of reporting by McClatchey reporter Nancy Youssef on the injustices of the detention regime of the Bush Administration. But I was struck by this part of Greenwald's post:

It cannot be overstated how flimsy is the basis for so many accusations of "enemy combatant" status from the U.S. Government. Wakil is someone who -- as the Bush administration knew and admitted since as early as 2004 when it conducted a status review hearing -- actively opposed the Taliban and al Qaeda . . . Despite all of that, the Pentagon continued to keep him in a cage for four more years based on extremely vague associations that led them to insist that he was an "enemy combatant." . . .

This is one of the reasons why I support a preventive detention regime that complies with the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions (read here and here.) Greenwald rightfully disdains the thoughtless defenses of preventive detention after acquittal. More . . .

Big Tent Democrat wrote here about the Obama Administration's position on continued detention of detainees who may be acquitted.

There were two Guantanamo-related hearings this week. One was yesterday, before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The other was today, before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. The ACLU provided testimony at the second hearing, and reports on both. As to yesterday's hearing:

Justice Department official David Kris testified that the Due Process Clause of the Constitution should indeed apply to the commissions system. However, in other testimony, Defense Department official Jeh Johnson stated that the United States can continue to indefinitely hold detainees who have been acquitted of crimes.

[More....]

Barry Wingard represents Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed al-Kandari, a Kuwaiti who has been detained at Guantanamo for seven years. While Kandari is no longer subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques," his life hasn't otherwise improved since President Obama ordered Gitmo's closing. It has, in fact, worsened in some respects.

Fayiz reports that a small number of military guards have begun to punish any detainee resistance or infraction, even minor ones such as talking back or hanging towels in the wrong location. The special unit of guards known as the Immediate Reaction Force — whom the cell-block guards call for assistance — has increased its number of bruising “cell extractions,” he says; almost every day, a detainee is forcibly removed from his cell as the guards show the prisoners who is in charge. Fayiz was extracted from his cell three times in a 10-day period this spring.

[more ...]

(See also Prof. Darren Hutchinson.) Glenn Greenwald:

When Obama first unveiled his "preventive detention" policy, many defenders praised him (and claimed he was different than Bush) because of his vow that -- as he put it -- "my Administration will work with Congress to develop an appropriate legal regime." But now, relying exclusively on three Obama officials speaking behind a veil of anonymity, Peter Finn and Dafner Linza of The Washington Post and ProPublica report that the White House is "crafting language for an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely."

(Emphasis supplied.) Outside of a theater of war, the President has no such Constitutional authority as the Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly in the last decade. This is a settled legal question. Glenn probably thinks of me as a "praiser" of Obama's previous statements on preventive detention. Whatever. My pieces speak for themselves. What I have NEVER praised is the idea that the President has the unilateral power to hold anyone indefinitely outside of a theater of war. Not only must Congress pass enabling legislation - the legislation must pass Constitutional muster (which means judicial review of the Presidential detentions) and must also comply with the Geneva Conventions. What Obama is reported to be contemplating is simply outrageous and unacceptable. It is Bushism on steroids. It would be unconstitutional. It would be struck down by the Supreme Court. It must be rejected and if Obama is even considering it, it is to his great discredit. It would be the most outrageous and offensive action Obama could take short of reimposing Bush's torture policy.

Speaking for me only