so why is guantanamo still open? it was the first thing he would sign an executive order to do. >> right, he ran on that. about banning torture and closing guantanamo within a year. they put a goal in place without a plan the short answer is and when they looked at the cases of began tan mo, they were a mess. created political space prosecutor his opponents. dick cheney comes out and gives a really tough speech about the torture memos etc. and they got on the defensive. congress started passing bipartisan law after bipartisan law saying you can't transfer the prisoners to the united states, you can't let them go. and the net result was they basically have been on the defensive on guantanamo and now it looks like it's going to be with us forever. gwen: it's one thing to discover ah when you become president or sit because the obama administration has decided this is a good idea, this idea of heightened interrogation or secrecy? >> certainly not on heightened interrogation. they were big on saying that was torture and

there was a report that a quran had been flushed down a toilet at guantanamo bay. there were riots in three countries and people were killed. dead. gone. now, a lie can race around the world in 30 seconds. while the truth is i think mark twain said the truth is still pulling its boots on, and what do you have to do? you have to find out did that happen? we can't lie. terrorists can lie. they have media committees, terrorists do. they sit down and plan media things so they can have events that advantage them in the world by using the free press and the media. we can't do that. we don't. what happened? well, people died. weeks later "newsweek" magazine that carried the report that the quran had been flushed down the toilet at guantanamo found out the truth and the truth was it hadn't. it had not happened. it did not exist. they ran a little thing in "newsweek" this said, oh, to the accident tent our article was inaccurate, we're sorry. well, sorry, they're dead. i mean, the basic lead in the news business is if it bleeds, it leads. general casey, he tried to get posi

anthony and i went to guantanamo together on the first trip. >> we did. >> ngos. that's right. >> after a very long and hard day, looking at the military commission. >> it was a very special trip. on many, many levels. but i wanted to get back to this -- the broader point that adam was raising. jack goldsmith has been talking about his new book and this notion that the aclu's position in these cases, these sort of post 9/11 security cases in particular -- not just the aclu but other ngos as well have either been not at all productive -- that is, they haven't achieved anything in terms of promoting liberty. but not only that, they may be counterproductive. i guess i think that's wrong and i at least think that the answer is a lot more complicated than that, right? so, for example, torture, which was the issue that i spent an enormous amount of time working on when i was at an ngo working on these issues, there was a time before, right, in 2002, where we had reports out of afghanistan where prisoners were being beaten to death. blunt force trauma. we couldn't get an

the administration was left with no alternative but to go ahead with a trial at guantanamo bay. today, the white house acknowledged that close in guantanamo bay will not be easy. >> there have been obstacles in achieving that. he remains committed to doing that. we have to ensure that khalid sheikh mohammed and others who are accused of these crimes are brought to justice. the procedure is under way to make sure that happens. >> the men could be executed. they will be called in 30 days to hear the charges. getting justice for a tax has proved complicated and controversial. it will not be much longer before the trial begins. jonathan blake, washington patty >> where washington correspondent says -- washington. >> our washington correspondents as the obama administration will not welcome the trial. >> the bush administration introduced this trial. it has been a big headache for the obama administration. they have done everything to end of this procedure. they were met with such fierce opposition, partly because of the cost of transferring the suspects, and also because americans d

five years later guantanamo bay remains open.esterday the pentagon announced it would hold a military trial for khalid sheikh mohammed and the four suspected of working with him. that will likely take place at guantanamo. joining us is hina shamsi. thanks for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> let's talk a little about the military tribunals which we've discussed with a certain amount of wariness. we know the administration is trying to reform them and you have thoughts how effective that reform is. >> i think that when we're considering the guantanamo military commissions we have to take a step back and look at how and why they were established. they weren't established to provide truth or justice, they were established to provide show trials, to permit the use of evidence obtained through torture and at the same time to hide the fact that torture has happened. their legitimacy was undermined right from the beginning and that shameful legacy continues to taint them today an undermines their legitimacy irrevocably. >> you

conducted ourselves and that includes waging war based on lies secret prisons rendition torture guantanamo bay all things in violation of international laws understanding of human rights and all things greatly damaged our reputation so for a minute here let's point out harold koh he's a state department legal adviser under the obama administration also a former dean of the law school and he was really vocal in talking about the damage that had been done under george w. bush six years of defining ocean entirely through the lens of the war on terror has damaged your human rights reputation given cover to abuses committed by her knowledge and blunted orderly criticized by leaders of the world. the next administration whether the democratic or republican will have the burden of repairing this reputation to build but i call up the sources of warsaw our. now code all so referred to president bush as the torturer in chief just you know and so a new profile of co by tarmac alvey tries to asco how it is that he's now become one of the most vocal supporters and pushers of the obama administration's

all five suspects could get the death penalty, if convicted at guantanamo. the case puts an emotional and politically controversial issue back into the fall campaign. president obama has received high marks for the mission that killed osama bin laden, but he also faces continued criticism for not shutting down guantanamo as he promised during his first presidential campaign. >>> in new orleans, five former police officers are heading to prison for their roles in the shooting deaths and the cover-up of two unarmed men in the aftermath of hurricane katrina. the officers killed the victims and wounded four others less than a week after the storm devastated that city. the officers planted a gun and falsified reports to make the shootings appear justified. in reading the sentences, the federal judge criticized the prosecution for cutting plea deals in the case. while four of the officers involved will spend decades in prison, others received just a fraction of that time after agreeing to cooperate in the government's case. one officer given 65 years in jail while

why do you care about 150 some odd guys in orange jumpsuits in guantanamo. we have two fifty million prisoners in america. why would we spend millions of dollars in defense to khqalid shaihk muhammad. for someone who was killed by drone from his own government america. we talk about specifics. no case is more important. in those cases, we are talking about the most critical exertion of government power. the number of individuals directly affected may be 150 at guantanamo but when you have the highest rank of government beside to hold individuals without charges of trial, ship them off and authorized torture which was hitherto illegal and then endeavor to escape from the entire public, lawyers, the public. you are talking about a high-stakes game that can literally change the course of american history and when we allowed a government like ours to hunt and kill one of its own u.s. citizens not in a theatre of war, with no assertion of legal framework, no assertion of the facts and kill him without any judicial review, executive branch gets to be judge, jury a

said that it is ready to resume the trial of guantanamo bay prisoners charged with the attacks on to november 11. among them is the legend mastermind of 9/11. he halted the previous military trial saying that he wanted them prosecuted in a civilian ourt, -- court, but congress halted that. americans assumed they had been charged already. >> they have been under george w. bush's administration. the suspects were charged, the plan was to go to military trial. when president obama wanted to close guantanamo bay, he wanted them to face trial in civilian court. the administration was left with no option but to press ahead with the military trial. >> probably the most famous of this group, ksm, and because of the controversy surrounding his treatment. how does that go into effect? >> he was water boarded 183 times, and he alleges he was subject to sustain torture. evidence by water boarding and would have been admissible because it was not tortured. but president obama has banned the practice in described it as torture, so it will be difficult for military lawyers to put forward that evide

it was planned to be a military trial at guantanamo bay where they were being held. he announced these charges would be withdrawn and the suspects would go on trial in a civilian court in new york. that plan turned out to be so unworkable it was scrapped. >> and of course, kalid sheik mohammed, the most famous. he had been subjected to water boarding. it became a famous case. >> ca records show he was water boarded -- cia records show he was water boarded 200 times. had the bush administration been in power, that evidence would be admissible. water boarding was not defined as torture them. president obama ruled it torture, so it would be very difficult in a military tribunal under his command, as commander- in-chief, to bring that forward in court. that is one of many issues that will have to be worked out. >> ok, thank you for coming in. kalid sheik mohammed maybe behind bars, but the quest to catch the rest of those on the most wanted terrorist list is ongoing. at the top of the list -- a man wanted for the 2008 mumbai attacks. the u.s. has offered a bounty. orla g

that directed the closing of guantanamo. it goes back before that during the 2008 campaign, the attorney general said the previous administration authorized the use of torture, secretly deta detained americans citizens without due process of law, denied habeas corpus he added that, quote, we owe the american people a reckoning. that reckoning started on the second a the ceremony the president announced that through these orders we were gaining what they called the moral high ground. afarntly he felt and for all i know still feels that the struggle is not stuff to claim the moral high ground. the public release of what had up until them classified the department of justice memorandum. analyzing the legality of the cia's interrogation procedures that were adopted at 9/11, that disclosure was apparently designed to stir a wind of outrage. when it camed to do so, because the memos have been clear. the lengths to which the cia had gone to avoid violating the law, the attorney general announced that he was reopening investigations

it much more personal than just a theoretical issue but what really worries me is this i was in guantanamo yesterday and i've been visiting. and the number of times that we made mistakes in that we bang people up in guantanamo who weren't terrorists who went fighting america it takes an amazingly touching faith in american intelligence the american government to think that as they said in the paper just today we don't have to know the names but we can kill them and we can be confident we're killing all the right people and you just trust us i mean that's astounding when you think of the mistakes they make in identifying the right people in guantanamo where they've had ten years to interrogate them but that's the thing right is that. kuantan of oh they're still dealing with they're still trying to figure out what to do with some of these detainees some of them they've actually declared on triable and you know i'm happy to bring that up too because there is a senate report that had been done by a commission but it took a look at the policy of torture which was employed by the bush administra

guantanamo bay go to the supreme court potentially and this is one of the great advances.'s problems was that he resisted judicial review and that was one of the many reasons why people didn't trust what he was doing. >> jon: are you worried about general civil liberties and the sort of window that has been pushed about data mining, the government's ability to just collect data from its citizens, this supreme court case about strip certains for even minor infractions, things that we are just tending to accept and the slippery slope we go down when we do that? >> of course i worry about it. i worry about the size of the government, the size of the national security bureaucracy, the size of the executive branch and the amazing scary powers it has and nothing in my book suggests we shouldn't be vigilant in questioning and criticizing but i think there are all sorts of constraints and check herbs and watchers looking at the president to make sure what he's doing is lawful and useful. >> jon: believe me, i was ready to open this up and be right "we're all months away from livin

they will be in a court at guantanamo antawn bay to hear the charges. it has proved controversial at every turn. it will be much longer before the trial against them begins. "bbc news," washington. >> while khalid sheikh mohammed may be behind bars, the fight to capture the rest of those on america's most wanted terrorist list is ondid go. the man at the top of the list is saeed, the man thought to be behind the mumbai attacks. he staged a youth conference from where our correspondent reports. >> on the trail of saeed. we found him opposite this complex, pakistan's army headquarters. he has always been considered close to the military. and just across the road, saeed was the star attraction among hard-line islamists. he says he runs a charity. the u.n. says it is a front for terrorism. now america has put a price on his head because of the mumbai attacks in 2008. washington and delhi believes he was the mastermind. he denied that and today he mocked the $10 million bowden -- bounty. >> i want to say to the state department why do you want to give the mo

>> yes. >> has the fbi interviewed the population of guantanamo bay. >> yes. >> have we gathered good information over time from that population without using waterboarding? >> yes. >> don't you agree that the best way to interrogate someone is not to torture them but to use traditional military law enforcement techniques? >> that's somewhat of a loaded question. >> if you say -- >> i would say we follow our rules -- >> you don't torture people in the fbi, do you? >> pardon? >> you don't torture people. >> no, sir. >> and you get good information. >> yes. >> i totally agree. what i would suggest to the committee is the questions about see confess trags, if this is not a wake upcall for the congress, what would be? you just heard the fbi director i think is doing a marvelous job and all his agents tell us if we do what we're planning to do, we're going to devastate one of the front line agencies in the war on terror. ten years ago, what was the fbi's budget when it came to national security issues? what percentage of your budget? before 9/11. >> i would say one-fifth of the budget back

the question is, will guantanamo and not a criminal court in new york prove to be the right place to try khalid shaikh mohammed? >>> and the masters tees off in two hours, making everyone wonder if this week marks the return of tiger woods. the question is, does tiger still have it somewhere inside

the question is, will guantanamo and not a criminal court in new york prove to be the rightla

he's the only american citizen held in guantanamo bay and is from baltimore county. i'm adam may.in-depth look at ,,,,,,,,,,,, >>> at 6:22, a local face of terror. a baltimore county resident who plotted with al-qaida to kill americans. this morning, wjz investigates and adam may looks at how the boy next door turn into the deadliest form of homegrown terrorist. >> reporter: good morning. the face of terror graduated from a maryland high school and then joined al-qaida but now he's gonna help turn in other terrorists. the quiet suburban street of the catonsville neighborhood suddenly ground zero in a 2003 terror investigation. >> i knocked on my door. >> outside my house quick noticed unmarked cars and said he was from the fbi. >> reporter: agents searched for information about majid khan. >> yeah. that guy used to live across the street from me. >> reporter: the 1999 graduate of owings mills high school is now the only american in guantanamo bay, an interrogation camp in cuba. what do you remember about him? >> a nice kid. >> he rode his bike. he played a little ball. >> reporter

so thank you for that support and to all those at guantanamo bay doing their job, you're going a great service. particularly the defense counsels i. think that's right and i think people should understand that when i sent people down for military commission treatment there, the revised commissions that exist, as i said in my speech at northwestern, many of the elements of due process that we consider vital to the american system. i think we have great defense lawyers down there. the military system doesn't get the credit it deserves for the fair way it deals with people and under the direction of mark martin a person i've known for some time, i think we'll be proud of the work they do. >> thank you very much, mr. attorney general. we're now going to turn to senator feinstein before senator pryor leaves, thank you for mentioning the cyber exercise and all who participated. next week we'll hear from the fbi and do an open hearing and then a classified hearing. you'll get -- this would be an opportunity to ask many of your cyber questions and go into the level of detail. i think the commi

why do you care so much about 150 some odd guys in orange jumpsuits at guantanamo? we've got 1.25 million prisoners in america. whooey do you care about 150 of them? why would we spend so much in the defense of sheikh mohammed? why would we bring a case against mr. alawaki's father killed by a drone? if you talk to mr. alawaki's father, there's no case that's more important. here, though, you're talking about the most critical assertion of government power. the number of individuals directly affected may be several hundred, 150 in guantanamo. but when you have the highest rank of government decide to hold individuals without charges of trial, to ship them off to black sites, to authorize torture, which was hittihered t illegal. and then from the press, lawyers, the public, you're talking about a high stakes game that can literally change the course of american history. and when we allow a government like ours to hunt and kill one of its own u.s. citizens not in a theater of war, with no assertion of the legal framework, no assertion of the facts and then kill him wi

the many contradictions so rounding the way that justice is supposedly going to be carried out at guantanamo bay for the nearly picked the detainees that have been deemed completely untried of all but just the ones that were tortured but the government still believes it actually has a case against them the truth is that our national security is damaged more because of torture because of guantanamo bay because of our counterterrorism policies have brought including drone strikes night raids you name it you don't make more friends by occupying countries killing civilians and then preaching about democracy and the rule of law both simultaneously locking people up indefinitely after you've flown them to other countries to have them water boarded and who knows what else and secret cia prisons and it did not take a genius to figure all that out but like i said some people out there they see nothing wrong with torture they think it was worth it and i think that's easy to say we don't have to actually know anything about it when you can be shielded from the ugly truth and so if we really want to ref

congress have intervened and in polls restrictions blocking the administration from bringing any guantanamo detainees to the united states regardless of the venue i have to deal with the situation as i thought. you know if you look to me determinations of these cases should be brought to the military commission. and here we are today with word that will be charged again and all litigation will have to start from the beginning to in a military commission thanks to a mainstream media all too willing to play into a fake controversy giddy to use the twenty four hour news cycle to deliver peter king's fear mongering for days and days on end now all of that is despite the fact that other guantanamo detainees like ahmed ghailani have since been sent to new york for a civilian trial and guess what nobody even cared about it was a typical trial and a typical day in new york and in fact two hundred forty individuals have gone through our civilian courts who were sent to prison after being convicted of terrorist related crimes and those were all after nine eleven on the contrary six people have been c

there paying attention probably know that the military commission process of guantanamo bay is currently going full steam ahead just the other week there were reports on the pretrial hearings of all dover hearing on the shiri he's the alleged architect of the u.s.s. cole bombing in the year two thousand of their of first amendment attorney representing media organizations argued for more transparency and for the testimony on the shiri who was water boarded to be opened by the judge chose not to rule on a decision there and all that was settled was that machinery could be unshackled when in the courtroom and he could need with his attorneys divider but that doesn't mean that the calls for transparency have stopped and you see there still might be more options the pentagon recently announced that the lead sheikh mohammed the self-proclaimed mastermind of nine eleven and four others will soon be tried in a military commission and get no where the penalty could be death and so now the attorney of one of the accused conspirators ali abdul as easily his attorney has filed a motion to challenge

promises promises it seems like president obama was full of them as a senator but from guantanamo bay to the wars for the protection of whistleblowers he can't seem to stick to his word will show you how the world war one area espionage act is being used against truth seekers and stuff spies. and last year it might have been the arab spring but occupy wall street might be the movement to watch in the coming weeks with the other warming up protesters are once again coming out in large numbers will find out what's in store for the so-called ninety nine percent spring. tuesday april tenth five pm here in washington d.c. i'm liz wall and you're watching r.t. . well the case has become doe and throughout the world and all spent three decades on death row he's now spending like behind bars without the possibility of parole he was accused of shooting a philadelphia police officer back in one thousand nine hundred one but questions still remain over how evidence in this case was handled and so this day he maintains his innocence and supporters believe he was mistakenly convicted because he wa

>> we are determined to make sure that we're able to bring justice to those individuals in guantanamohrough either transfers to other countries, other areas -- >> when? >> you know, we've had some dealings with congress, and congress has not made this easy. and so what we're trying to do is to make sure that we do this responsibly. the president said he is going to close it down. he has continued to be determined to do that. but we have to do it in a manner that does not put the safety of the american people in jeopardy, but also in a manner that we can bring justice to those people. we'll work with the congress, we'll continue to have ongoing discussions with them, and i'm hoping certainly one day that the people in guantanamo will no longer be there. >> so can i take that as a "not anytime soon"? >> well, you can take it that we're going to continue to work on it. >> all right. john brennan, thank you so much for joining us this morning. the president's advisor on counterterrorism and homeland security. >> thank you very much, candy. >> thank you. >>> an "outside the beltway" view o

89 of the folks in guantÁnamo who, everybody agrees, should be released, when they have a place to go what is torture? is it still going on? of course it is. then there are these super max prisons where folks are in isolation. and for me, things are happening so quickly, the passage and signing of the national defense organization act, what does that do? and given who voted for it, our own senators, our own good new york centers for it, barbara mikulski voted for it. what does that do to him she should be indicted? and what does this new law do to the structure? >> well, those are very important questions. i'm not talking about whether people should pass law, shouldn't pass law. i'm talking about the laws that are already on the books, and these laws have been on the books, the anti-torture act, wiretapping law, the defrauding congress. by the way, defrauding congress issues in the prosecution of people in watergate, top aides to nixon, and it was used in connection with the iran-contra prosecution. so that the statute that is well-established that i'm not talking about should they ha

. >> he's the only american citizen being held in guantanamo bay. he's from both marconi. i'm adam may. and ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, >> five days of first warning weather today and tomorrow 60 degrees are you we have that done tomorrow until the evening. clothes will fit in ahead of a storm system on tuesday. 74 degrees on tuesday. in the 70s and 80s for wednesday, thursday, and friday. >> military officials say the relationship between the u.s. and key middle east ally is still afraid on the eve of a major anniversary. u.s. officials have not been able to reach an agreement with pakistan to reopen an important supply route. closed since november after an strike killed pakistani troops. the white house turned on the demand for an apology saying the country is not doing enough to stop militants like al qaeda. it's been almost a year since osama bin laden was killed in a hideout in pakistan. >>> he's the local face of terror. a former baltimore county man who plotted with al qaeda to kill americans. >> wjz investigates very of the boy next door turned into the deadliest form of ho

he has not been able to close guantanamo. do you think the situation in which this country is, with the sense of threat, is one that is leading to a notion of civil liberties? i worry that it is. the national security community has become so entrenched and powerful in washington. it is very hard to push it back. politically, it is hard to push back in congress. some of not closing on, now -- not close in guantanamo is some of the opposition obama got before tried to do. they did not get very far. don't think they did a priority. with the drone program and prosecution of those who are critics of these programs to reporters, i think it is a big worry. i don't see it as necessarily over. there is a lot of turmoil in this. there is a big role for the press to play. >> chris, what you think of the drone program and reactions to that when you're on the ground. , en you geinto the mind of a pakistan who sees a drone coming overhead? what about the american fighting man? you documented some of the frustration they felt. this was in o

on, and the kind of failure to only close guantanamo of failure to release the folks in guantanamo who everybody agrees shouldn't be released with a place to go. that shows torture is it still going on? of course it is. and then there are these super maximum prisons where folks are in isolation, and for me things are happening so quickly the passage in the signing of the nussle defense authorization act. what does that do? and given who voted for it, our own senators, good satyrs to veto senators voted for, barbara mikulski, what does this new law do? >> those are very important questions. i'm not talking about whether people should pass slowly come shouldn't pass block if his half time talking about the laws store on the books and fees have been on the books, the antitorture that, the wire tapping law and converse and is used in the prosecution of people in watergate, the top aide to nixon, and it was used in connection with the iran and contra in prosecution. i'm not talking about should have passed this act, should they not have passed this act. we don't even have to go there. i'm j