the university of arizona, the gallagher theater, the campus is quite large, just a little bit away from downtown tucson, beautiful day out here in tucson, the sun is shining, is in the 70s, the chamber of commerce is very clean, 100,000 people attending this festival in its eighth year and this is a two day festival and booktv is live, we are covering author panels as well as doing call ins in a minute or so, you will be able to talk with linda hirshman who you just heard on the air talking about her book "sisters in law," sandra day o'connor and how sandra day o'connor and ruth bader ginsburg went to the supreme court and change the world. the numbers if you want to talk about the supreme court, with linda hirshman who is an attorney, 202-748-8200.

.. >> in guantanamo bay, it is called "guantanamo diary" and

after that panel and the final panel is on money and then we will talk to gilbert who wrote "billion ball" it is about college sports and the funds they receive. >> host: linda hirshman, what is the relationship between sandra day o'connor and ruth bader ginsburg? were they friends? >> guest: i would say they had an affectionate alliances. they were not bff's. ruth bader ginsburg was really with friends with scalia. and sandra day o'connor was really friends with lois powell and she and john and loi

circumstanceslois went on vacation together. it was clear from their demeanor they had an affectionate alliance. >> host: what was their first meeting like? >> guest: i will say in 1981 when sandra day o'connor was approve pointed to the supreme court ruth bader ginsburg wasn't in washington. she heard about it on the radio and didn't know o'connor well. o'connor was a judge and ginsburg didn't know here but said she was glad to hear it. we know they met before 1983 because when o'connor got on the supreme court she inherited

potter stewart lawfirm and that firm had clerks for ginsburg. >> host: what about at the supreme court? what do you know about that? >> well, you know, we heard earlier that michele obama reached out to the other first ladies for information. there is a lot of tipping stepping points with the oral tradition. and the etiquette argument, there are many unspoken ways in which o'connor helped ginsburg being a success but o'connor wanted him to be a success.

>> host: is ruth bader ginsburg going to miss her buddy? >> guest: she misses her body so much. o'connor left in 2006 and somebody asked how she felt and she said lonely. she really missed sandra day o'connor in a thousand ways. here a cool way o'connor was of enormous value for ginsburg. she was senior by the time it was the end of her term. they speak in order of seniority at the conferences. so by 1993, when ginsburg came on, o'connor was very senior. she spoke, i think, third. once she showed support ginsburg didn't have to make the argument

because o'connor made the argument. and after she left, ginsburg started to notice the difference. sotomayor and justice hagan came and ginsburg is very well pleased they are there now. i think sotomayor helped that. >> host: when i used the word buddy i was referring to antonin scalia. >> guest: oh, so sorry. everybody asks me about that.

they say, and i believe it, they had a positive communion and it was in good writing and they corrected each other's draft and made them better. ginsburg said they wereery close. >> host: linda hirshman, as an attorney, as a cultural historian, is lifetime appointment, in your view, best for the supreme court? >> guest: i have been thinking about that a lot because the demographics changed. and even though supreme court, like many old rich people, live

longer than others, so it is not compared to the general population. people live longer and women live a lot longer. so i have been thinking about this question. and there is an argument for limiting the tenure now that people's lifespan is so long. you have to, i think, amend the constitution which is hard to do but it is not a crazy suggestion. it means you have learned to plug as we saw justice kennedy do and you can develop positions that are different from what you had when you were appointed. it is not crazy at a suggest this in today's population

>> host: linda hirshman is our guest and go ahead with your question. >> caller: we have the same hair and style and color and we could be sisters. i wanted to ask when they take on the task as first ladies why don't they continue them after they leave? it is like a hobby. and i would like the reaction. >> guest: you mean like while childhood obesity continue to be pursued by michele obama in the white house. that is an interesting question. >> host: a little off topic but... >> guest: lady bird johnson continued her beautification process after johnson left the white house so i think it is a matter of is it sincerely something that interest them or

if it is safe and politically poplar to do and not hurting their husbands who are the elected people. >> host: julie in company. we are talking about supreme court, women in the supreme court, etc. >> caller: yes, i thought it was a great panel and i look forward to purchasing your book. before the break, you mentioned there is self-discipline. and i was wondering what would their habits, and how did they develop them, that made them so successful and so special? >> guest: well one thing they had is they never believed that they were cinderella. they thought they believed to be in the govern class and had faith they deserved to be there and because of that they treated the men who were in the powerful role as if they, the women, were equal to the man.

because they treated the men as equal when the men pressed o'connor and ginsburg to admit they were inferior they took offense. and when they took offense they were so self-disciplined they only took revenge when it would be effective. the classic example is the dean at harvard law school asked ms. ginsburg in 1957 what she was doing taking up the place of a man at harvard and she said she thought she should anyhow as much as possible about her husband's work who was year ahead of her. after the woman's movement, ruth bader ginsburg told the story on the dean so many times he wrote to the harvard newspaper saying she -- he was only kidding.

how did they get to where they were? part of it was life on the ranch and part is ruth bader ginsburg is smarter thaany woman i have heard of. >> host: did sandra day o'connor sit down with you for the book? >> guest: no, she took the position there wasn't enough material for the book. >> host: 400 pages later? >> guest: i think she thought i was only writing about their relationship which wouldn't have been a whole book instead of using it as as bases to tell their lives which there is ample material. >> host: we are here in tucson, arizona where sandra day o'connor was from. how did that affect her career?

>> guest: enormous. she was a product of the west. i have lived in arizona for 32 years myself so i knew what was going on. she was on the ranch where there was no hand to spare and had to function and expected totrive at 15 and do all of the things a boy child would have done. arizona and the west in general have a robust culture of volunteerism. women could volunteer before the civil rights act when they didn't get paid at all, much less equally, women would volunteer for important jobs and show how good they were. and sandra day o'connor was so good, and competent and smart, that as soon as she could do a job you could see her doing a great job and she was valued. it is a more open world and one reason why i love it. >> host: the fact that sandra day o'connor came from a more

political background than ruth bader ginsburg did that affect how they were on the court? >> guest: tremendously. the head of the aclu and a great sponsor of ginsburg told me that sandra day o'connor had a laser-like intelligence for exactly where the american public was on any issue at any time. >> host: that is what the head of the aclu said? >> guest: correct. the head of the aclu giving that lavish praise to sandra day o'connor. she was. if you look at her potentiin op she moved society forward because she knew were they were. >> host: can you give an example of a case? >> guest: one was the sexual harassment case. this was the first case in which the supreme court of the united states held that sexual

harassment was a violation of the civil rights act and not just a little good fun at the office. the first time and it was very important the supreme court say that. they had a unanimous court saying this ghastly harassing guy in the bank violated the civil rights law when making his female worker's lives a living hell but the question was is the court responsible and the court split four to four and o'connor was the swing vote and said unless the bank knew, or should have known, their supervisor was harassing the employee they would not be libel. i asked the clerk why she did that and the clerk said she wanted the first opinion to be

umaninous. >> host: ann in iowa, go ahead with your comment for linda hirshman. >> caller: yes, you had justice ginsburg said that she would not be -- no one as liberal as her would be appointed again and i think that is too bad because i think our founding fathers were more liberal than these people that say the constitution says this. what is your opinion on that? >> guest: some of our founding fathers were slaveholders so i would be reluctant to call them liberal. i would tell how i think they are right. they wrote a constitution that is a living document. so they expected it to govern the nation. as they could not imagine it was going to change. writing a constitution as a

living document was an amazing and progressive thing in the 8th century. >> host: linda hirshman has written books on the gay revolution, victory, coming out in 2013 and her 2006 book "get to work; and get a life before it is too late" she is a former woman's study professor. rachel in durham, north carolina. hi, rachel. >> caller: can you hear me? >> host: we are listening. >> reporter: i have read several books about the supreme cou court, one by jeffrey cuban and another by woman i cannot remember her name. in jeffrey's book it seemed that when o'connor came on the court,

renquist wanted it to be his court but it became the o'connor court. >> guest: she called herself the rinta of paradise valley. and that is like an old jewish match-maker person. she took a lively interest in the happiness of others. when i did interview her one same on the phone she said to me she hoped that future fenail supreme court justice would be able to be married and have children as she and ruth had happily done. it became the o'connor court because it split 4-4. once powell left and kennedy came on she became the swing

quote. so to some extent her position was a reflection of the changes that the nation was going through as we elected ronald reagan and he put conservative justice on the court and the number of liberals declined. i am so grateful that we had sandra day o'connor as the first woman on the supreme court because she did such a fabulous job and i don't think another person appointed by ronald reagan could have possibly did what she did in those years. >> host: linda hirshman is it fair to say it is the kennedy court today? >> guest: you would think it is the kennedy court. he hold the decisive vote but i think it is the court in waiting. we are 4-4 and waiting to see what the political nation is going to turn up to resolve it.

otherwise they will start to split 4-4 and that will mean it is the nobody's court. >> host: linda hirshman, make an argument for both sides. delay the nomination/push forward the nomination. >> guest: i will say this. the constitution of the united states does not say the senate has to meet and advicse and consent. that is not the language of the constitution. making the case for waiting, the constitution doesn't compel them to act. and that would leave it up to their political judgment. i think their political judgment is wrong. okay? i think they are making a divide between america become worse by applying it to the supreme court of the united states.

just between me and you, most of the court is dominated by democratic nominees know what the republican senators are doing is handing the nation off to predominantly democratic judges. >> host: what about their spouses? were they supportive? they both passed now but were they supportive? >> guest: apparently so. marty is the great husband who learned how to cook, was a fabulous cook, and using his web of connections to advance his wife's career. she said she could not have done it without him and i believe it. o'connor was less visiblely advancing his wife's career. she could have moved to

washington when nixon was elected but didn't because of her family. when the moment came for her to go on the supreme court, john o'connor left a lucrative job and went to washington and never had again a great of career. you have to give him a lot of credit for supporting her. i want to say whether it is marriage or no marriage at all but if you decide to get married these were great marriages. they made each other happy and loved each other. it is a beautiful thing to see and very heart-warming to me because my husband just died when i started writing the book so i loved seeing how happy they had been. >> host: the next call for linda hirshman is marcie in new hampshire. go ahead. we are listening. >> caller: yes, linda, i cannot wait to read your book and look

forward to it. my question is, have you noticed, or did you note in the book, any of the differences that women on the supreme court now in their decisions make differently than the previous supreme courts that were all men? is it just the issues they have to deal with? thank you. >> that is a very, very good question. so, sandra day o'connor juris prudence on cases involving women were more liberal than her decisions in any other agreement. so sandra day o'connor agreed with ruth bader ginsburg 95% of the time on questions involving women but mow more than 50-60 percent of the time on everything else.

i looked at these numbers. and secondly, did ruth bader ginsburgring the democratic appointment women vote differently from steven brier not so much. so you would say gender doesn't make a difference. but that is wrong. gender makes a difference in the questions they and -- they ask in oral arguments. the presence of someone like ruth bader ginsburg on the court made an enormous difference in the way that harassment and school children harassment was discussed in front of the court. there is a big court journalism reporting that and everybody gets a lesson of what it means for a 13-year-old girl to have her body searched. having ginsburg on the court made a huge difference. we just saw, not to weeks ago,

when ginsburg, and kaygan took the case to court. >> host: the next caller is from new orleans. good afternoon. >> caller: hello? >> host: go ahead. >> caller: hello, ms. linda hirshman, i think you are a wonderful person. i didn't complete college but my daughters did. what gave you the idea to write this book? >> guest: to some extent i swam in the stream of ruth bader ginsburg and sandra day o'connor. my whole career, i am 71, and i graduated from lieu school in 1969 and the supreme court had not said the equal protection clause applied to women when i

was practicing law. two years later when ruth bader ginsburg got them to say that it meant the world to me. and similarly, i was a professional woman in the '70s and part of the movement to try to get the president to appoint more women to the federal courts at all much less the supreme court. so when sandra day o'connor was appointed to the supreme court it meant the world to me. i was so hoping it would happen just like she said. she said it is okay to be the first but i do not want to be the last. and i was watching her and i didn't want to have her fail. i wanted to be the next one. so they were really my offense. >> host: when will see see a woman chief justice?

>> guest: there was talk about making it o'connor. she would have been great and is widely respected. john roberts was a young man so i want to say some years. >> host: next caller is jade from ohio. you have we are listening and you are on with linda hirshman talking about the supreme court. >> caller: thank you. linda, you have such a wonderful sense of humor. it is great to hear that on c-span. thank you for that. what is the link between ruth bader ginsburg and sandra day o'connor to the first ladies? the next queson i have is all that has been going on how did both justice ginsburg and sandra day o'connor link up with the wife of

[inaudible question] >> caller: i think the women are left out which is unfortunate. >> guest: ruth bader ginsburg is responsible are the supreme court publishing a book about not being in power. she was the wife of another supreme court justice and she turned out to be very influe influential getting him to say in the late 19th-century we should not, by law, separate white people from black people. holland was a real force and ruth bader ginsburg recognized it and was able to make a book about her which bought her a little respect that she deserved. ruth bader ginsburg always saw

possible women of the era in every walk of life. >> host: last call >> caller: i am sorry i didn't brandise this but you are outstanding. my question is if you had opportunity to appoint a just e justice, give us a couple examples of people that you would feel would be an appropriate choice to make? >> gary do you have any choices?

>> guest: she combined the principles i admire and has such integrity she will honor her journey and her ambition. if i were invested in the senate, which would be a great thing for the country, i would appoint collins.

>> host: linda hirshman, thank you very much. as we continue up next is ted cruz who was council who mohamedou ould slahi who is a pris prisonor of guantanamo bay and wrote a book called "guantanamo diary" and she will be joining us. >> welcome, everybody.

i cannot remember an event more timely than this. "guantanamo diary" is a powerful non-fiction book and a mystery. when a hand written manuscript was published after the hard fight theresa duncan will tell you about you could not read between the lines in some places. thick bands of black ink modified the text in 6,000 places and at one point eight pages were blotted out. the question is answered with fast growing frequency since 2001; why do they hate us? the book is about the non-american man and by american

women and man and government. slahi was in the wrong time at the wrong place and after 14 years of torturing, suffering, and humilitation in guantanamo bay no one has proved otherwise. the review in the new york times makes it clear that the damage torture does to a society that condones it. i will sight this review in the garden. guantanamo bay diary reveals more vividly than any other book in the shock of this subject how ould slahi and others became victims with a sense of

individual collective. the captures tried to establish full spectrum dominance in a lot of ways. among them, it is announced today we will teach you about great american sex as two topless women rub against this body and playeded with his p penis. one threatened to have his whole family sexual assaulted. a thoughtful person believes there are two kinds of people in the country. white americans and the rest in the world. white americans are smart and better than anybody else in the world. ould slahi use of if i were you sighted anger saying don't compare you to me. they don't like him to speak

english that said and we want you to die slowly. the west's lawyers rejected and chose to stigmatize a group of human beings. they did not consider the risk that men trying to convince themselves of their strength and virtue to dehumanizing others can assume the most vicious traits of their enemies. in a final passage to sight the rights, and in an initial conversation with lawyers, he talked about dreaming of talking over a cup of tea and hopefully that day comes and we will learn about his last decade in purg

tory. that lawyer is with us. some presidential candidates want to expand torture making us less safe and president obama is hurrying to keep an eight-year promise to close guantanamo bay. theresa duncan left law school and eight years later has been working on many important things. i will skip her long list of accomplishments but don't be surprised her replacing scalia on the big bench before next january. she spent 3,000 hours going back and forth from guantanamo bay

and working on this case because she believes in it. she will be signing half on hour later than usual because she is doing stuff on air here. she has a stamp with mohamedou ould slahi signature and with any luck you can find them in january signing. for the signing, it plane leaves for guantanamo bay in an hour so you will find her in a hurry. terry, tell us about this wonderful man and this family man and how he wound up where he is. >> sure. mohamedou ould slahi is a 45-year-old man from a place in africa. when he was 15 he won a scholarship to study in germany and his family hoped he would go

to europe and be able to support them. he did that. so he went to school, he learned, and in the early 1990s, like a lot of young arab man, he went to afghanistan to fight the government that was prohibiting religion in afghanistan. he went for training and returned for the final battle against the communist government and then left when the different arab factions began fighting with each other. he went home to germany and continued his studies. he got married and immigrated to canada for a brief period of time before turning into mor tain in 2000. in 2002, he received a call from the police there asking him to come in and i will read a little

later from how he describes that meeting. he did as requested and then disappeared and his family didn't know his whereabouts for forecastly 2-3 years and didn't see his face for another six year. he is one of the smartest and most compassionate people i have met. i met him in 2005 when i began representing him. he was asked to write down all of the times he was questioned by the government and he laughed and said that is like asking charlie sheen how many women he has dated. every time i go to visit him, i go to talk about his case, and the first thing he wants to know is how am i and how are the members of my team. when his family first spoke to

him in 2002, their first video call with them, rather than complain about what has been done is how is everyone? who married who? who is going to school? and reprimanding the children who were not doing well in school. very compatissiocompassionate. i got to meet his family in march and talked to one of his childhood friends who told a story that captures who he is. as children, they would play street soccer and get competitive and one child would occasionally trip a child. and mohamedou ould slahi got excited in the soccer game and ended up tripping another child. everybody would on go and keep playing but he stopped and apologized profusely and wouldn't keep playing until he assured the child was okay and

he continued to apologize for months after and his friends made fun of him because he was so kind. that captures what kind of kindness he has. when you read the book you will see it kindness coming off the page and trying to understand the people that did horrible things to him. >> i will not ask you to make the guest but the way people were being picked off the streets in afghanistan for personal vin deta by army guys who had no clue what they were getting and maybe half the people in guantanamo bay probably shouldn't have been there. the few times these guys actually do get their day in court or the judge is able to pronounce the judge let's them go or they are still there. how is it for so long people have been there? how does this happen? >> well, for the cases at guantanamo bay, you know, one of

the reasons by the u.s. military chose the base in guantanamo bay is because it is outside of the territorial jurisdiction of the united states and u.s. courts. it took many years of fighting by lawyers other than me to get a ruling that the u.s. courts had the authority to consider who was there then the habeas hearings started so the hearings to determine if the people at guantanamo bay should be there. he started mohamedou ould slahi's case in 2005 and filled a petition in the district of columbia. around the time we filled on his behalf, his brothers request, two prosay requests came asking the court to review this case.

he finally had a hearing in front of a judge in washington, d.c. in 2009. it was judge james robertson who proceeded over two days of hearings. judge roberts issued an opinion he found the government was holding him unlawfully and had in sufficient evidence to hold him and ordered him to be released. the obama administration appealed to the washington, d.c. court of appeals and they held that the law had evolved and the department aof justice was litigating and the law evolved so the court of appeals sent the case back down to the district court for a hearing and nothing has happened since. president obama then issued an executive order requiring that everyone at guantanamo bay who

wasn't charged by military commission get what is called a periodically review hearing. in habeas, at least in the gaubt guantanamo bay cases, the question is was the united states authorized at detaining someone the moment they grabbed them. when the u.s. government grabbed him in 2001 was it justified and judge roberts said no. the question before the review board is is this question a threat to the ongoing safety of the united states and president obama ordered everybody at guantanamo bay who wasn't charged by military commission should get this hearing and nothing happened for years. it is just the obstruction of the department of defense and its resistance to president obama's lawful order. what we were saying earlier is now, four years later, mohamedou ould slahi will finally have that hearing in june and we have

confidant and hopefully the review board will take an honest look at this case and he will finally go home. >> let me ask you a broader question. i read a strong essay on this a declaring torture is a war crime. we have a presidential candidate, i will not name him but his hair is orange, and he said he thinks whoever torture doesn't work is stupid. i was in argentina when water boarding was done over and over again and people a generation later hate this. this is a tactical revenge that didn't work. why do you think we continue to condone torture?

we had the 5,000 leaked report from the people who do it saying this doesn't work. why does it continue? >> i think the people who condone torture don't understand torture and what they are talking about. the people who understand it understand that torture doesn't produce reliable information. we don't rely on coherin court. anyone who understands the human minds knows if you beat someone long enough they will tell you whatever you want to here. people watch movies like "24" where you see the hero go in and beat someone and that gives the information that prevents the

building from being blown up. but in reality that doesn't happen. if you beat someone and threaten their families long enough human beings will tell you what you want to hear and that is not information we should use to implies -- implies people. so anyone saying torture is a legit tactic doesn't understand the system and the fault in it. >> another thing, if i see my numbers right, it cost me half a billion dollars. 445 million, or us, last year to maintain guantanamo bay. and the big argument is we can'tbri -- can't bring them here. we have more prisoners than kids in elementary school in this country. we are in danger from the people

who put the prisoners in not the prisoners. what is the resistant from america to closing guantanamo bay? >> i have to say that is a good question and i don't know if there is one i can answer other than saying it is fear, i think. fear and a lack of understanding. we have been told guantanamo bay holds the worst of the worst. you know, i resist the option of bringing guantanamo bay -- i guess it is two-fold answer. i think anybody who is going to be tried for a trial at guantanamo bay needs to be tried in the american court with full protection. i think our justice system is fully capable of prosecuting the clients charged at guantanamo

bay. bringing the men we will not try to the united states i am opposed to because it is just moving guantanamo bay to another place and a place that is less physical. so their lives will not be better, maybe worse, they will be forgotten in some prison in illinois. as long as they are they guantanamo bay everybody is looking. the only way these men will finally be released and justice done is if we continue to watch until they are out. >> let me bring you back to this wonderful quote here. you took this hand written diary of 417 pages. and keep in mind that mohamedou ould slahi learned english and

as his forth or fifth language. -- fourth -- he spoke person germans to the points that people said pc laden, linking him with laden because he was in germany in a pc store. this is a wonderfully written book and wonderfully written because of the author but because of the editor who is has never met and they become great friends it sounds like. i know you marked a bunch of pages in the book. is this something you want to expand on. >> ould slahi and larry never met. larry asked the u.s. government to let them meet and the government said no. ironically enough citing the

geneva convention as the excuse. larry, over time, from editing the book, and hearing his voice, has become part of ould slahi. ould slahi can't have the book but has seen the great work larry has done. i want to -- we have quoted a lot from the book from his words and i want to read a brief passage from larry's introduction because i think it really talks to this relationship between two writers who recognize each other's gift although they cannot meet or speak to each other. larry is talking about the world of guantanamo bay which is a world of moments of brilliant humanity of guards who, you know, at risk to their own career, show compassion to the prisoners.

so this is the secret world of guantanamo bay. a world with startling premeditative brutalities and incidentals and a world with justice and kindness, acknowledgment and recognition, mutual curiosity and mohamedou ould slahi was able to experience all of this and it says a great deal about his character and humanity. it says more about his skills as a writer that after the most traumatic experiences he created a narrative that is deeming and damaging. this isn't what impressed me most as a reader and writer, however. when i opened the filled of the hand written manuscript what arrested me was characters and scenes far from guantanamo bay.

the hard luck stowaway in the prison, the sunset after a dust storm, a heart breaking moment during the ramadan called to prayer, the rain-glazed run way in cypress. here is where i first recognized mohamedou ould slahi as a writer. his sharp eye for character, his remarkable here for voices, and the way he reports with all five senses and accesses the full emotional register in himself and/or others. he has a moving sense of beauty and a sharp sense of irony. he has a fantastic sense of humor. he manages english as his fourth language, the language he was

mastering as working on the m manuscript and this stems from this desire to engage. it meant moving beyond interpretation and a third person in the room and opening the possibility that every captor can be a personal exchange. it meant coding and understanding a language of a power that controls his faith. the power of interrogation illustrating of staggering influence. out of this engagement comes a truly remarkable work. it is a mirror where for the first time reading anything from guantanamo bay i recognized aspects of myself from those of myself and my country. it as a lens with an empire and

scope few of us who live inside it understand. >> you mention the reason these two didn't meet is because of the geneva convention. is there any phrase in the geneva convention we haven't violated in the last 15 years? >> i am not sure about that. seriously as a lawyer and knowing this case well, what is the rational? the point of the geneva convention is we try to do the right thing when we know what that is but when our guys get captured by somebody else, which happens often and will happen more if anyone is elected, we investigate the convention and one of the things i remember is that -- well, the question is if we don't respect international norms of the people we hold in

custody, how can we expect their respected protection when it comes to us? >> i think that is a concern lt . you uphold the law as an example for others. the u.s. government use the geneva convention as a shield to protect itself. but didn't respect the prohibitions in the geneva convention when treating the men at guantanamo bay. mohamedou ould slahi was tort e tortured at guantanamo bay. that is not just his words but the words of the fbi and the senate armed service committee. it is well documented beyond his book. it was torture and there is no excuse for what we did. it is hypecritical to block

their words from reaching the public. >> the arbiter in this is the red cross guys in geneva who crossed the lines and enforced this. in jordan, where he was first tak tak taken, they had come in and the jordanians were hiding from them. i mentioned this to terry and apparently we are doing the same thing at guantanamo bay. >> there is a publically released memo from the administer at the guantanamo bay who was asking to see mohamedou ould slahi and they said he wasn't available. he talks about getting a letter

from his family and wanting to write back but don't because she wasn't access to the representatives visiting at guantanamo bay which is an conter vention of international law. >> we will save time for questions if they occur. i would assume there is microphones but either way come on up and ask. there is another thing, you mention 2005 a while back is a turning point, there was a letter actually cited in the footnote of the book and i wasn't back to entitled the woman of get -- gitpmo. sometimes it is clumsy

disguising the fact women are taking place in this torture. no one can approve of turning an american soldier into a pseudo lap dancer smearing menstrual blood on a man. these practicpractices are degro the woman as much as they are the prisoners. does anybody in the military believe a cold-blooded terrorist who has had abuse will crack because a woman runs her fingers through this hair? if devout muslims become terrorist because they believe we are depraved does it make sense by trying to unnever -- unnerve them by having women act like this? does it make sense?

>> certainly it doesn't make sense. torture is wrong to the people tor coming and it is something talked about in the book. he tries to understand the people doing the horrible things and understanding the consequences of what they have done. there were young men and women guarding them with concerns about they were going to hell. as wrong as it is to do that to non-americans, it was wrong to put our young men and women in the position of doing violence to other people and living with the consequences of that. ...

>> there's so many examples of how, essentially, turns people around and, you know, like this guard in puerto rico that -- i'll let you -- >> sure. let's see. all in all, the environment -- meaning the environment at guantanamo -- is not likely to be a place of love and reconciliation. the hatred here is heavily watered. but believe it or not, i have seen guards crying because they had to leave their duties in guantanamo. i am your friend, i don't care what anyone says, said one guard to me before he left.

i was taught bad things about you, but my judgment tells me something else. i like you very much, you're a great person, said another. i hope you get released, said -- redacted -- genuinely. you guys are my brothers, all of you, another whispered to me. i love you, said a redacted corpsman, a funny young guy i personally enjoyed talking to. he was shocked. what? here, no love. i am muslim. i just laughed about that forbidden love. my job is to help your rehabilitation, one of the guards told me in the summer of 2004. the government realized i was deeply injured and needed some real rehab. from the moment he started to work as my guard in july 2004, redacted related to me right. in fact, he hardly talked to anybody beside me.

he used to put his mattress right in front of my cell door, and we started to talk about all kinds of topics, like old friends. we talked about history, culture, politics, religion, women, anything but current events. the guards were taught i was a detainee who would try to outsmart them, but the guards are my witnesses. i didn't try to outsmart anybody, nor was i interested in current events at the time, because they only made me sick. before redacted left, he brought me a couple of souvenirs and with redacted and redacted, dedicated a copy of steve martin's "the pleasure of my company" to me. [laughter] redacted wrote: pill, the nickname for him was pillow, and he sometimes called him pill. i've gotten to know you, we have become friends. i wish you good luck, and i'm sure i will think of you often. take good care of yourself, redacted. redacted wrote: pillow, good luck with your situation.

just remember allah always has a plan. i hope you think of us as more than just guards. i think we all became friends. finally, redacted wrote: 19, april, 2005. april -- pillow, for the past ten months i have done my damnedest to maintain our relationship. it is almost impossible to not like a character like yourself. keep your faith. i'm sure it will divide you in -- guide you in the right direction. >> my favorite redacted of the book is he's being asked and asked and asked for names and stuff, and he says -- he's being shown a bunch of photographs, and so he says, oh, yeah, this is gamel abdul nasser, i said, the dictator president of egypt until 1970. you're making fun of me, aren't you, said redacted angry. no, no, i just thought it looked

like him. it stops. redacted is a former egyptian president who died before i was born. they took out nasser's name in case it was a military secret. [laughter] again, he talks about these terrible things and how much stress, and he talked of home. and he says, and i heard that, and i wept. and it was -- they took the word wept out like, you know, like you're not going to figure that one out. and speaking of home, terry, you were telling me he got maybe a couple of times, skypes a year to be able to talk to his family and learned about his mother. >> so the icrc eventually was able to i think around 2008 began to set up phone calls for people at guantanamo to be able to talk to people at home. and those phone calls are happening more frequently and are now via skype so you can see each other. and one of the most tragic moments for mohamedou at guantanamo, and i think it's a real example of the ongoing

cruelty of detention, the torture has stopped, but the pain and suffering has not. and that was in 2013 no ham due had a skype -- mohamedou had a skype call with his family, and his mother weren't there. they had always been very, very close, and these phone calls happen infrequently enough that his mother took advantage of every single one of them. so he asked his family, where's my mom? they told him she was sick, but it was fine. and mohamedou sensed that something was wrong, and it turned out he was right, because his mother had died. but his family was afraid to tell him because he was alone at guantanamo. they were hoping they could tell us, and we would be there to help him through the process. but mohamedou, he knew something was wrong, so he contacted the military who contacted us, gratefully, and helped us to set up a phone call which took

several weeks of mohamedou wondering. so finally, i was able to have a phone call with him which i had the heartbreaking job of telling him that, yes, his suspicions were right, and she was gone. and so that continued isolation is a torture of a kind, you know? here in america, i'm a criminal defense lawyer, i have a a lot of clients who are incarcerated in prison. they can call their families regularly enough, and mohamedou can't do that. so that's a real cruelty. it caused real suffering for him not only to be separated from his mother, i think a great hope was always that they would be reunited. but also just to be so isolated and have no way of finding out information that is just critical to your well being. >> terry, you're a silver medallion member with the u.s. air force right now, twenty trips to guantanamo, 300 hours.

tell us a little bit about this place that flies our flag. >> sometimes you can fly military planes. there's actually -- i can't remember the word now. there's contract flights -- >> charter. >> charter. thank you, thank you. charter flightings. so you fly to florida, and then you fly to guantanamo from florida on one of these charter flights, and you say -- so it's, i always joke to my friends and family, oh, you're going to cuba, that's so great. can you get me some cigars, some music? no, no, no -- >> [inaudible] [laughter] >> i'm going to kansas and getting dropped in the middle of cuba, and that's the part of i go to. it's a military base, military housing, you stay there. usually i go for two days at a time and see him for about seven and a half hours. but the trip, it's a two-day trip there and a two-day trip back to see him, so it's quite the ordeal, but --

>> what's it look like? what -- i mean, how do these guys live? >> so i can't get into details about how mohamedou lives. guantanamo really does look like kansas. it's got a mcdonald's and a kfc and a starbucks, but i can't talk about the facility itself. >> of course. i understand. what's the combination of the front gate? [laughter] are there any questions? would anybody like to come up to the mic and ask? >> just playing devil's advocate here and this coming from one of the republican candidates for president, how do you respond to those who say these are prisoners of war and, therefore, they should be tried by a military tribunal as opposed to our courts here in the united states? and the other thing is, and i think this is something marco rubio mentioned recently. he claims that guantanamo's the

best prison in the world, that it's -- currently -- and that prisoners are treated better there than anywhere else. >> you know, i think i'll answer the first question sort of briefly. the, you know, the government has e equivocated on whether these people should be treated as prisoners of war with, as enemy combatants, as civilians. they basically have acted as though they're outside the scope of international law altogether. so i think that, you know, the government has to decide one or the other. with respect to the claim that guantanamo's the finest prison, it's just not true. i mean, i spend quite a bit of time in guantanamo, and it's like every other prison i've been to. and even in a prison you, like i said, you can't call your family if you're worried about them, you don't get to decide what you going to eat, what you're going to read, what you're going to do. and in american prisons people, you know, you're detained pretrial, but the most people

who spend the time that mohamedou's spent in prison have gone to trial, have the full panoply of american justice rights and have been found guilty by an independent, unbiased tribunal whereas mohamedou hasn't. so there's this -- i think there is a suffering inherent and indefinite detention. when you don't have the means, you don't have the means for it to end. you're sort of powerless in that way. so, you know, it's not a club med. i wouldn't -- there's nothing you could pay me to put myself in guantanamo. it is, it's an awful place. it's a prison. and so, i mean, the only people who belong in prison are those who are convicted of crimes under a fair, a fair process. >> yes. >> has the obama administration been heroic or villainous in its, candidly, in its relationship with mohamedou and with guantanamo? >> i mean, i -- so i would say

the obama administration has been unjust in its treatment of mohamedou's case. judge robertson's opinion declaring mohamedou's detention is unlawful was after a fair and full hearing. the aclu actually has a petition up right now, it's at the aclu web site asking the u.s. government to withdraw its appeal of that determination. it should never have been appealed in the first place. i think it's been unjust in delaying and delaying and delaying this prb hearing to give mohamedou an opportunity to have his case reviewed. you know, i think that it's just, to me it's always unjust if you deny someone a fair opportunity to obtain their relief, when you detain someone without charge. so, you know, it's hard for me to say hero versus villain. i think the obama administration has done some really great

things and has done some things i disagree with very strongly. but i think, you know, i very much am heartened by president obama's renewed commitment to close guantanamo by the scheduling of mohamedou's prb hearing, and i understand some other people who have been waiting years are now getting scheduled. so i'm going to hold him to his promise to get people out this year, and if he fulfills that promise, it'll be 100% hero for me. >> if i'll excuse me just -- you'll excuse me just one second, let's get back to the beginning of how he ended up there in the first place. early on this was an article that this was the guy who planned 9/11, and how dare we talk about it and stuff. but really there's, from the very beginning has there really ever been anything that really links him to something he ought to be being punished for? >> no. no. there have been a lot of allegations, and the allegations against him have changed over the years. so initially the allegation,

when he went to canada, shortly after he got to canada a man named ahmed tried to cross the border with the united states with a car full of explosives, and he was intending to blow up the los angeles airport. so there was suspicion that because he had been in montreal and mohamedou was in montreal, there was a link. that is concern -- the government has abandoned that. ahmed was charged, he made multiple statements to the government, he testified against people, and as judge robertson notes in his opinion, he made no statements against mohamedou. so that has been abandoned. then there was this allegation about 9/11, that mohamedou recruited some of the people involved in 9/11. and, again, in judge robertson's opinion ordering his relief, after reviewing all the evidence that the government could muster said it was clear there was no way mohamedou even knew about 9/11. so i think that what, you know, the editor describes the case

against mohamedou as guilt by long-ago association. >> great line. >> meaning that, you know, mohamedou admits he went to afghanistan in the early 1990s, and during that time he swore a loathe of loyalty to al-qaeda and that al-qaeda was a totally different organization than attacked the u.s. in 2001. at that point al-qaeda was fighting, as were many groups, fighting against the communist government with the support of the united states government. we were on the same side in 1991, as anyone who's watched "charlie wilson's war" or read that book know. so he had relationships with people. some of those people continued in al-qaeda even after al-qaeda turned against the united states. but mohamedou didn't. so i think that really sums up the government's case. >> blow up lax. if he could find a way to do it without hurting anybody, he ought to get a medal. yes. >> i just wanted to ask you to expand on the review boards, and

who is selected to be on those? do the detainees all go in front of the same board? what factors do they look at to determine whether or not they're a continuing threat? >> there are three panel members, and i think they are different for each -- i'm not sure if it's for each detainee, but they're different. they change over time. so the real question is they look at things like how has someone behaved while they've been at guantanamo. and so in mohamedou's case, he's been an exemplary prisoner. he's been nothing but respectful of the people he's sat with. they look at conditions of the country where someone might be released, so in his case, mauritania. if he's released, can mauritania provide for his safety. so it's really a forward-looking endeavor. and it's, the hearing, mohamedou appears before the review board. the review board can ask him questions. i'll be there as his private counsel. i can make a statement. we can pull together evidence from family members, people who knew him about what his life

will be like outside of the tribunal. and so the board is supposed to be looking forward. they do look a little bit backwards at the educations, but mostly -- at the allegations, but mostly it's a forward-looking process of whether someone can be safely released. so there have been, to date, 23 review board hearings. and of those 23 hearings, 19 people were found not to present a current threat to the unite. and so the -- the united states. and so the state department is in the process -- either has repatriated them or is in the process of finding a place for them to go. >> yes. >> i haven't read your boofnlgt i'm very interested in it. somewhere i missed the connect on how you became connected with him -- the connection on how you became connected with him and what's driven you to keep up with this for so many years. >> so in 2005, mohamedou's family contacted a very well known civil rights lawyer, and he contacted -- they were trying to find out if mohamedou was in

guantanamo. no one knew. he just sort of disappeared one day. so the lawyer contacted a lawyer in france, another civil rights lawyer who had worked with my former partner, nancy hollander, who's another one of mohamedou's lawyers, on some civil rights cases. so emanuel teat, the french lawyer, e-mailed nancy and said, hey, can you figure out if this person's at guantanamo? and nancy and i had been talking about representing someone. this was 2005 when the litigation had started. this idea that you're going to suspend the rule of law and just hold people without any process made me pretty angry, and i wanted to be a part of the effort to push back on that. so we dutifully called up the government and said, hey, is mohamedou old slahi in guantanamo, and they said they couldn't tell us until we filed

a habeas writ. one of the forerunners of the guantanamo litigation, it's a great organization that took on the task of just gathering up lawyers to work for free on these guantanamo cases. so nancy and i then joined with sylvia royce to represent mohamedou on his habeas petition. and so i came on to the case, i believe, in march of 2005 and first met mohamedou in august of 2005. and we've just been fight ever since. fighting ever since. >> yes. >> i'm a little confused about what you see the end game is for guantanamo. initially you said you don't like the idea of shipping them out to different prisons around the world or however. and yet you're hopeful that obama's going to somehow close guantanamo before he leaves office, which is pretty soon. so what do you see happening? it seems that they're all going to be tried in the u.s., that's going to be a long-term process, it seems to me. >> my position, and this is just

me speaking for terry duncan, is if you have charges for which you can put someone on trial, the people they've got, i think there's seven people who are currently facing charges in the military commission. if there's anyone at guantanamo you can charge with a criminal offense, you should do that. charge them, put them through the trial process, and if they're guilty, you can confine them. it's been 15 years. if you cannot charge someone with a crime, they should be released. [applause] >> terry, i was intrigued by one paragraph in this book where slahi talks about a couple really horrible examples that happened, and some ores, but since i'm speaking about my own experience which represents examples of the evil practices that took place in the war against terrorism, i don't need to talk about every single case i witnessed. maybe on another occasion if god

so wills will there be another book. >> i hope so. i mean, mohamedou, he writes prolibly. so i hope so. i hope his next book he's here talking to all of you about it himself. i really -- yeah. i hope so. >> thank you so much for everything you've shared. i had a question about logistics of getting the book, like, out. like you mentioned, you know, them not being able to meet around geneva conventions. but i'm just curious, i don't know, to me, when we talk about, like, a threat to national security and that being -- i'm kind of surprised that some of the materials weren't confiscated or, like, how did he -- i guess he was begin access to paper -- given access to paper and writing utensils. but i can't imagine that there wasn't some, there wasn't some controversy around that.

and so i'm curious about just the process of him writing it to begin with and then also how he got connected with larry the editor and the process of, obviously, there was the redaction. but it, you know, getting out. >> that's a good question. so when nancy hollander and sylvia royce first met with mohamedou in early 2005, the guards had given him a notebook, and he had written 90 pages of his story and gave that to nancy and sylvia, and that was the very beginning. in the months after that was when he wrote the book. he sent them to us, his attorneys, in chunkings. and by the end of the year, we had the full 400 pages. so nancy and i and the rest of the team started working to try to have -- so everything that the men at guantanamo write to their attorneys is presumptively classified, meaning we can't share it with anyone until the government clears it. and there's a process for doing that. so we submitted the book into that process to have it cleared

to determine whether it was classified or could be released. and the government refused to do that. and so our legal team litigated with that issue for seven years. we fought to get mohamedou's book out, just to have it cleared. and we fought and fought and fought. and finally in 2012 we realized that this book wasn't going to get out. so we ultimately waived the attorney/client privilege so that it could go back to guantanamo at which point the people at guantanamo reviewed it and then released it with still sort of restricted with this stamp on it that says protected. and protected and a made-up designation just for guantanamo cases which means we can share it with our team, but we can't share it with the rest -- with you. so we then had to go back and say, no, that's not right. we want to have an unclassified version. so about a year later, the government released to the attorneys this unclassified version which is what you all

see in the book. and at that point we were able to contact larry seams and gave him the book anded and asked hio take on the role as editor. it was a long, hard-fought process. it was very frustrated. it's why even though the book was written in 2005, you only got to see it last year. >> you know, in the book he says, you know, he gets -- often gets almost as mad as more genuine authorities as he does against american, and in jordan he quotes, you know, look, your country is really -- i guess we've agreed not to use any f-words here, but really screwed up. and has there been repercussions from our allies in rendition and our former supporters and stuff as a result of what's happening? the mauritanians specifically, but has there been blowback from governments that helped us do

this extraordinary rendition and these punishmentsesome. >> you know, i'm not sure. i know that the united states and mauritania continue to have a positive relationship. i know mauritania has been, has been asking for mohamedou to be red.c.ked. there are three -- released. there are three detained at guantanamo, two who have returned home, and i think the mare town january government is continuing to ask for his relief. as far as i know, they're still very much in a close relationship. one of the ironies of mohamedou's stories is -- one with of the major arguments the government has made for his detention is he has a cousin who was a spiritual adviser to osama bin laden, allegedly. and he returned to mauritania in 2012, and he's been living as a free man since 2012, i mean, clearly with the blessing of the united states government. so the fact that the government used this association and

continues to the use this association to keep mohamedou at guantanamo when everyone else is still walking out on the street is incredibly frustrating to us. >> thanks. yes. >> terry, do you believe that guantanamo is being used as a recruiting tool by al-qaeda, isis and other terrorist groups, and do you believe that prisoners who have spent time in guantanamo and then are released are more likely to fight against the united states because of the way they've been treated by the united states during their time at guantanamo? >> you know, i don't know how to answer your first question. i don't know. i mean, i think that with your second question i think that the people who are held at guantanamo are a very diverse group of people. i can tell you that, you know, mohamedou is not someone who after release is going to commit acts of violence against anyone. his frustration and his anger at, excuse me, what was done to him, i think the only thing i see him doing with that is engaging in further dialogue and more meaningful dialogue with the public and with government

officials on how to avoid having something like that happen. i think it's dangerous when we talk about a group of people as diverse as the people who are held at guantanamo and say they're going to do this or they're going to do that. i think it really has to be on a case-by-case basis. clearly, guantanamo is a town on our history. it's a moment when we, a country that has always been committed to the rule of law and to human rights violated that commitment, you know? in the war on terror. so, you know, it's not -- it certainly is not helping our image in the world. >> yeah. i mean, i think that's probably the biggest problem we face here is that four-letter pro noun, "they." why do they hate us, the terrorists. i mean, the threat is so wide. the more we treat them globally, you know, the more -- [inaudible] is there a final thing you want to get in? because we've got minutes, and you've got a lot to say. >> i think the last thing i

would just like to share with you is another portion of mohamedou's book. sort of about, where he talks sort of about what his point was. one of the things that i think is so powerful about his story is he only talks about what he saw, knows and did, he tries to be honest and not to speculate. so he says crisis always brings out the best and worst in people and in countries too. did the leader of the free world, the united states, really torture detainees or are stories of torture part of a conspiracy to present the u.s. in a horrible way so the rest of the world will hate it? i don't even know how to treat this subject. i have only written what i have experienced, what i saw and what i learned firsthand. i have tried not to exaggerate,

nor to understate. i have tried to be as fair as possible to the u.s. government, to my brothers and to myself. i don't expect people who don't know me to believe me, but i expect them at least to give me the benefit of the doubt. and then he writes later, and this is his -- this is the very closing part of the book. what do the american people think? i am eager to know. i would like to believe the majority of americans want to see justice done, and they are not interested in financing the detention of innocent people. i know there's a small extremist minority that believes everybody in this cuban prison is evil and that we are treated better than we deserve. but this opinion has no basis but ignorance. i'm amazed that somebody can build such an incriminating opinion about people he or she does not even know. and finally, i just wanted to quote from -- we talked about this earlier, but quote mo ham i due. in a recent conversation, he said that he holds no grudge

against any of the people he mentions in this book, that he appeals to them to read it and correct it if they think it contains any errors, and he dreams of one day sitting and talking around a cup of tea. >> and let's use the few seconds we have left for a very loud round of applause. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

>> and booktv's live coverage of the tucson festival of books continues in just a minute. theresa duncan, who is counsel to mohamedou slahi, will be join ing us and taking your phone calls. 202-748-8200 in the east and central time zones, 8201 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones. after our call-in, there is another author panel coming up, and it's entitled "influence and money." and david maraniss, gilbert gall and michael hits sick will be on that panel. those three authors will be together. and after that, gilbert gall

will be joining us. we will be back again tomorrow for another full day of coverage theresa duncan is now with us. what was mohamedou slahi's life like before 2002? who was he? >> guest: so mohamedou was living in mauritania, in africa. he was working as an engineer. he was actually helping to install internet connectivity in mauritania. on the day he turned himself in, he'd actually met someone at the presidential palace to talk about installing internet access there. in march of 2014, i met with a doctor who told me in the months before mohamedou was arrested, mohamedou was volunteering to establish internet service at a local hospital to enable the doctors to communicate with doctors all around the world to better the care of their patients. so he was working, he was newly married, living with his family. >> host: he was working in mauritania, but his

nationality -- >> guest: is mauritanian. mohamedou is from mauritania, yes. >> host: and you say the day he turned himself in. >> guest: yes. so in november of 2012, mauritanian officials came to his house and said that they wanted to talk to him -- >> host: 2002. >> guest: oh, sorry, 2002. correct. yes. they wanted to talk to him, and mohamedou said, yes, drove himself to the police station there in mauritania, and that began his now 15-year odyssey to guantanamo. >> host: now, theresa duncan, there's going to be people out in the audience saying there is a reason guantanamo is still open in 2016. and is there not a reasonable answer to that question? >> guest: so i think that that's a complicated question. as i said before, if there are people who have committed crimes against the u.s., they should be tried. and certainly there are seven cases pending in the military commission. i would argue those cases should be tried in american federal courts. but at this point there is no

justification for the ongoing defense of people who have not been found guilty of a crime. >> host: and he has not been even charged. >> guest: he has never been charged by a crime, and the one impartial judge who has looked at all the evidence against him found that his detention was unlawful. >> host: little bit of a sensitive question, but how are you paid for your work as his attorney? >> guest: i am not paid. none of the lawyers that work for mohamedou have been paid or will ever be paid. we do this for free. >> host: have you worked on similar cases such as this? >> guest: i worked very briefly on another case at guantanamo. my co-counsel, nancy hollander, represents the military commission. i worked on a material support of terrorism case in the northern district of texas, and i worked on the defense of terry nichols, charged in the oklahoma city bombing.

>> host: what was your pull to that case? >> guest: to -- >> host: to the terry nichols case. >> guest: i'm a very strong to tonight of the death penalty. i think there's never a justification for that particular sentence. i had a law professor who was hired to do motion writing for the terry nichols case, and she asked me to join her. it was also an opportunity to work with my professor. >> host: and where are you based, and where'd you go to school? >> guest: i am from albuquerque, new mexico. i graduated from st. johns college in santa fe, new mexico, and from the university of new mexico law school. >> host: are you surprised at your current line of work? >> guest: i am, actually. i went to law school to become a prosecutor. i had done -- i know. [laughter] you know, before i went to law school, i did a lot of nonprofit work, and one of the areas closest to my heart was the rape crisis center. i did a lot of grant writing for them and was very much engaged in violence against women and

domestic violence. but then i did an externship and met a public defender, and i saw the compassion she had for the victims of the crime but also the people who were charged. trying to understand their lives and trying to understand how they got to the worst moment of their life. that was so fascinating to me, so she's the reason i became a criminal defense lawyer. because it's interesting to me to really understand people and how the world works. >> host: how are you treated when when you're at guantanamo? >> guest: i'm always treated very respectfully. the guards are always very professional. you know, one of the things that's been so striking to me over the year is the is the relationship mohamedou has with the people who guard them. he is really respectful, they're respectful of him. it's, you know, it's not an on on -- on seek wows relationship. so i've always been treated with respect there.

>> host: well, theresa duncan just spent an hour talking about mohamedou slahi and guantanamo bay. your turn to talk with her. if i you've been watching, and we're going to begin with ruth in flint, michigan. ruth, you're on the air. >> caller: oh, thank you very much. amazing that you represented terry nichols. i'm in the county where he went to school. but what i have, what i'd like to say is i felt like urn the bush administration -- under the bush administration our whole justice system in the united states became corrupt. it's so political that we have people warehoused in prisons that don't belong there. local prosecutors will just look for a, to get a name to get reelected to protect their jobs.

and they really don't care whether people are guilty or innocent. and it's just atrocity. and the thing with guantanamo bay, they just herded up a bunch of people and labeled them and stuck them in prison. and the pictures i got is they're literally in dog pens. and i know dogs that live better than probably people in prisons and jails. and thank you for whatever you're doing out there and keep up the good work. >> host: theresa duncan. >> guest: thank you. >> host: what about what she had to say about guantanamo? did you find the conditions to be what she said? >> guest: so no longer. the cages we all saw back in 2002, those are no longer used. they've been preserved under a court order, but the prison now is more like a prison that you would find in the united states. >> host: how many people are down there at this point? >> guest: i believe at this point there are 91 men still at guantanamo.

there's -- >> host: all men. >> guest: all men. there's only ever been men at guantanamo. i think seven people have been charged by military commission and are waiting for trial. three have actually been convicted. i believe it's 36 or so have been cleared for release but not yet released x there are about 40, 40 something who are just under the indefinite detention at this point. >> host: what was the original reason that the police in mauritania wanted to help to mohamedou slahi? >> guest: the u.s. government. it's always been. this whole thing has been at the request of the u.s. government. >> host: but there had to be some reason. >> guest: you know, i think part of it, it was post-9/11. there was an effort by the u.s. government to round everyone up. they were beginning to round people up in afghanistan, and i think mohamedou got caught up in that. >> host: was he an activist? >> guest: not at that time. at that point he was just living in mauritania working with his new wife, building a regular life. >> host: but did he have a

connection in any way to people that were involved in 9/11? >> guest: so he has a cousin who was a spiritual adviser to ma bin laden, but he was -- at that point there was a relationship, but they were not working together. so, no, there's no evidence that mohamedou had anything to do with 9/11 or had anything to do with al-qaeda in 2001. >> host: theresa duncan is counsel to mohamedou slahi who is the author of "guantanamo diary." and up next is pat in plymouth, massachusetts. pat, hi. >> caller: hello, ms. duncan, very nice to talk to you. i was wondering if you have any concerns or information about the recidivism rate among the guantanamo inmates that are released. i'm afraid i have to take this offline because i'm working. thank you very much. >> guest: so i can't really

speak to the genre sid vim rate as i said earlier. each case is very different. i have no concern whatsoever about mohamedou slahi's release. i know he will go back to living peacefully with his family in mauritania and contributing to his community. >> host: evelyn right here in tucson. evelyn, go ahead with your question for theresa duncan. >> caller: theresa, first of all, thank you for the work you're doing on behalf of these folks. because guantanamo is such a blight on our history and society, could you tell me what would you think would be helpful for the presidential candidates to do or to say in order to bring this to an end? >> guest: that's a really great question. i think in a very broad sense one of the things that would

help is for us to change sort of the tone of our dialogue of this us versus them, of treating an entire group of people as an enemy, treating an entire religion asen an enemy, understanding the intricacies and complexions. for guantanamo what we nee is a return to the rule of law, that we will return to our american values and our commitment to american justice. either we try people and if they're convicted, continue to detain them or release them. >> host: but, theresa duncan n2008 president obama was going to close guantanamo. >> guest: yes. and he hasn't. [laughter] >> host: and, again, i don't mean to repeat this, but there's got to be a reason, doesn't there? >> guest: i think it's just stubbornness, you know, by the u.s. military. i don't know why, but thee's this sort of, this, you know, sticking your feet in the mud in refusal to give up on the idea of a need for indefinite

detention. i think it's obstinance, that there is no reason. >> host: the guantanamo bay prisoners, how are they treated different legally than prisoners in the u.s. charged under criminal codes? >> guest: so i think, first of all, in the u.s. court no one could be detained for 15 years without going to trial. that would just, that would not be allowed. they would be -- they would have to have a hearing in front of an impartial tribunal that determines their fate. the people in the united states have a much broader rht of habeas corpus. we just filed a pleading in district court complaining because mohamedou's writing materials were taken from him. and if he were in the united states, we could use the court system to challenge those actions, but because he's at guantanamo, the court held its didn't have jurisdiction to do anything about that. >> host: what is habeas corpus? >> guest: it's a legal

proceeding by which you take -- sort of bringing the body of the prisoner to the court. so it's the way that a prisoner can challenge the conditions or the fact of his or her confinement. >> host: and you said that some materials were taken from him. what was the reason or what kind of materials were taken? >> guest: so mohamedou was moved, and during that point some of his, like, legal materials -- briefs, letters from us -- were taken under a new policy at guantanamo for how much legal material a prisoner can have in their cell at any one time. and at the same time, some personal materials were taken from him and haven't been returned. >> host: and are you dealing with a specific court or courtroom or judge? how does that work? >> guest: yes. so we're dealing with judge lambert in the district court for the district of columbia. >> host: royce lambert. >> guest: we started with judge robertson who ordered mo lam due released back in 2010. he retired shortly thereafter, but we're now in front of judge lambert.

>> host: now, if he was ordered released, who prevented that? >> guest: the obama administration did. [laughter] they -- by appealing his decision to the court of appeals. so there were a couple of decisions that the court of appeals issued after jdge robertson's ruling, and the court of appeals held -- asked -- they sent the case back to judge robertson for reconsideration under those new decisions, and that's where the case has stopped. >> host: and why is it the d.c. court of appeals that's handling this or the d.c. circuit court? >> guest: well, because -- d.c., they decided d.c. courts have jurisdiction over guantanamo as that's where the department of defense is. so the d.c. circuit is kind of the default for bringing litigation in federal court that's not brought in a particular state. >> host: next call comes from husain in queens, new york. husain, good afternoon to you. please go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: good afternoon, sir. and thank you very much for

bringing the truth, most of the facts that have nondisclosed. as a student ofly, i have always wondered -- of history, i have always wondered that the more we grow in years, why we, the americans, we are become more blood thirsty and blood thirsty. for example, we committed the genocide of the indians, then the africans, then we were in world war i and world war ii. in world war i 14 million human beings were butchered. in world war ii, 70 million human beings were murdered. in the cold war which we call it, 131 million human beings died. so my question to you is that when this blood thirsty hysteria

will end. now, what we have committed was -- [inaudible] if we did americans and put them in such a situation. these are human beings. i am from pakistan. and, believe me, we used to love america. now if you go to, in pakistan, the embassies there surrounded by the security guards. so when this bloodshed will end which is on the hands of the american elite. >> guest: i mean, i hope that the bloodshed will end as soon as possible, if not right this moment. i think that what you said about we are all human beings is the critical point. i think when we commit to

treating each other like human beings, acts of violence go down. and it's when we treat people who are different than us as other that it makes violence so much easier. so i think whether we're american or mauritanian or wherever you're from, pakistani, the commitment to the rights of the individual is the way that we end violence against each other. >> host: how is your arabic? this many years later? [lghter] >> guest: i do not, i do not share mohamedou slahi's facility with language. so, no, i have no arabic. >> host: how is his english? >> guest: it's perfect. it's really good. he has got such a great way with language, so -- >> host: is that because of his time in guantanamo, or did he speak english prior? >> guest: he could speak it a little bit before when he was working on computers. all the manuals are in english, but he's perfected it at guantanamo. and he's also recently learned spanish. >> host: how often doou meet

with him? can you call him? >> guest: we try to meet with him, me and the other members of my team, every couple months. i just visited him last month. we can call him rarely. you have to show extraordinary circumstances for a phone call. so, you know, i think i've set up a call when we won his habeas because it was going to take me too long to get down there, and i didn't want to wait. we were able to set up a phone call when his mother died so i could talk to him about that, but it's difficult to get a phone call. >> host: what's the process for getting down there? >> guest: you have to make a request to the u.s. government. then they tell you, yes, you can come -- >> host: after how much time? >> guest: it's gotten a lot faster, actually. you have 20 days beforehand. you have to give them at least 20 days' notice. recently, the turn around's been a couple days. and then you have to schedule your flights and that sort of thing to get down there. >> host: and the flights scheduled are military flights, aren't they? >> guest: no, they're actually not, they're charter flights out

of ft. lauderdale. the military commission and military operations takes precedence over habeas counsel. >> host: why do you have to give them 20 days for that request? >> guest: you know, i think it's the government. [laughter] i think it's paperwork and bureaucracy. i'm not sure why. >> host: next call for theresa duncan, myet in new york city. hi. >> caller: yes, good evening. such an excellent program. i'm going to be scrambling to rehear this. let me say that i want to say ditto to the first caller. she made such excellent points about how george bush, under the guise of 9/11, set up a whole system where what we should have been doing was looking at the unprecedentedness of 4% of the population targeting black and brown people mostly in this whole prison system.

and, luckily, bernie is starting to bring some of that out. but my main question to ms. duncan -- and keep up the good work. i want to send love and peace and continued courage and resilience to brother mohamedou. but my main question deals with, well, it's a two-parter. is he thinking at some point of writing -- is she thinking at some point of writing her own book? and i want to also, as a point of clarity, find out a publisher, because i want to do a review on black star news of the book. but i want to know if she's thinking at some point of doing her own book in terms of her experiences at guantanamo when the government would permit such. but mainly, i want to know if she has followed dr. judy wood's book, "where did the towers go," who as a mechanical and all

kinds of credentials engineer points out to us that towers such as the world trade towers do not collapse, they do not -- they literally disintegrated. she was on the air with pacifica wbai which is a program called in other news. you can hear it on -- >> host: all right. i think we got your point. number one, who is the publisher, have you thought about writing your own book? and are you a 9/11 truther? [laughter] >> guest: so, number one, little brown is the publisher. number two, no, i have not thought of writing my own book. >> host: why? >> guest: i think partly i've just been so busy. i also don't know that i could write anything nearly as eloquently as mohamedou has. i think his firsthand account of that is so powerful, and anything i would write would pale in comparin and, number three, no. >> host: who gets the proceeds for "guantanamo diary"?

where do they go? >> guest: we have established a trust for mohamedou. we've put his share of proceeds in the trust in the hopes it will help him to establish his life in mauritania when he's released. we've used some of that money to help his nephew go on to college. but the main purpose is that when he's released, he'll have resources to help him reintegrate into society. >> host: next call comed from ahmed in washington d.c. please go ahead, sir. ahmed? i think we have lost him. so let's try curtis in miles city, montana. curtis, you're on book tv with theresa duncan. please go ahead. >> caller: thank you for taking my call, and it's nice to talk with you, mrs. cup can. duncan. my question is -- yes.

i guess i should state i'm a vietnam vet that served in the combat zone -- >> guest: thank you for your service. >> caller: oh, you're welcome. also the vets that served in afghanistan, also in iraq wonder where should the prisoners of war be kept either waiting for their legal day in court or have been already tried? and i'll take that offline. >> guest: so i think if someone's going to be tried for a crime against the united states government, then they should be tried in u.s. federal court. and if they are convicted, then imprisoned in an american prison. if they're charged with committing a crime against, you know, the government of afghanistan, then they should be tried in afghanistan court and imprisoned there. so -- >> host: are any folks associated with potential 9/11

issues held in the united states? >> guest: you know, that's a good question. i'm not sure. i don't know the answer to that. >> host: all arab-speaking of the 91 people still in guantanamo, are they all arab-speaking? >> guest: i believe so. i believe the last british detainee was returned home earlier this year. i don't know that it's just arabic. there are many people like mohamedou who speak multiple languages. so i believe so, but i'm not sure. >> host: john's in port charlotte, florida. hi, john, please go ahead. >> caller: yes. thank you for the call. i've been in gitmo many timings. it's not just -- many times. it's notust a -- such a bad place to winter over. and i wonder, the attorneys representing these fellas down there get paid somehow. they have to fly back and forth. they have to eat and sleep while they're there. how much are they getting, and where do those funds come from?

and i'll take that offline. >> host: john, before you do, you said you've been in guantanamo. why have you been in guantanamo bay? we will never know. theresa duncan -- [laughter] you talked about the fact that you are not paid as his lawyer. you're doing this pro bono. what about other people? do they have means to pay their lawyers here in the u.s.? >> guest: i can't speak to everyone, but i can say that the majority of the lawyers who have represented people at guantanamo have done so for free and have paid for travel out of their own pockets. there are two nonprofit groups who have worked in guantanamo, one is the center for constitutional rights, and the other is the aclu. but there is no, you know, pot of money from which to draw salaries or travel expenses. so my former law firm has paid all of the travel expenses for me since the very beginning.

>> host: friedman boyd hollander. what kind of law do they practice? >> guest: they practice different things. joel goldberg is one of the leaders in the country of antitrust litigation. john boyd and david friedman are civil rights and personal injury and civil lawyers, and nancy hollander is a world-renowned international criminal defense lawyer. >> host: what percentage of your professional time do you pend on this case? >> guest: i would say, you know, it's varied over the years. when we were lit dating the habeas petition -- >> host: that was your life? >> guest: yeah, that was pretty much my life. i was living at guantanamo or d.c. now i would say about a tenth. it's now busy because we have this hearing set up in june, so i'll be working tirelessly between now and june -- >> host: and the hearing in june is -- >> guest: it's the hearing to determine whether mohamedou is a current threat to the national security of the united states. >> host: and who will hear that? where will it be held?

>> guest: so it's a three-member panel that will decide. we will be at guantanamo with mohamedou, so it's done by video. so the panel sits one place, and we're with mohamedou in guantanamo, and he testifies, and i get to make a statement, and we have a personal representative from the military who will be assisting us. >> host: and who will sit on that panel? who are the three? >> guest: they're military people. i don't know who they are at this point. >> host: last call for theresa duncan comes from ray in waterford, connecticut. go ahead, ray. >> caller: hi, ms. duncan. my question really is i have a number of friends who are, have served in the war on terror. all of the people are not as good as mr. slahi and, obviously, you feel squirmy about that. how would you set up a system to determine in the end whether that individual that's captured is worthy of prosecution or should be released? thank you.

>> guest: so i think that, ultimately, first it's the government's job to amass whatever evidence that they think they have against a person, and then the decision whether soone should be convicted of a crime or -- so the decision should be by the u.s. government do we want to prosecute that person. if the answer's now, you need to release them. if you think they have done something that's worthy of detention, then the u.s. government needs to bring them to court and try them. >> host: theresa duncan is the counsel for mohamedou slahi, author of "guantanamo diary." thanks for your time. >> guest: thank you. >> host: and booktv's live coverage of the tucson book festival continues. now there's another author panel today. we're going to bring it to you live. it's entitled "money and influence," and we'll let the moderator introduce the panelists. after the panel, gilbert gall, who has written about sports and money, will be joining us for another call-in program. live coverage from tucson. ..

>> we have dave here, who is a