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It has been more than six years since the first detainees arrived at Guantánamo Bay's Camp X-Ray.
After hundreds of detentions and two Supreme Court decisions rejecting the administration's detention policies at Gitmo, the legal status of the detainees there remains unresolved and the fight continues to end unlawful detention and the denial of due process.
The ACLU is one of four organizations that have been granted status as human rights observers at the military commission proceedings. When the tribunals began in 2004, ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero and two ACLU international human rights lawyers attended the proceedings and blogged about the experience so Americans could know the truth of Guantánamo.
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The ACLU has continued to hold government leadership accountable by filing Freedom of Information Act requests for documents that reveal systemic torture to prisoners held in U.S. custody. So far, more than 100,000 pages of government documents detailing the torture and abuse of detainees.
In addition, the ACLU and Human Rights First have charged that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld bears direct responsibility for the torture and abuse of detainees, and filed a complaint in federal court in January 2006 on behalf of nine men subjected to torture and abuse under Rumsfeld's command.
In an ACLU podcast, Legal Director Steve Shapiro talks about what is at stake in the legal battle over Guantánamo, detention and the Military Commissions Act. Listen >>
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