Peter B. Collins Presents Reporter Jason Leopold & Lawyer Robert Wagstaff
While President Obama claims he wants to close the prison complex at Guantanamo, the prospects look slim at present. Jason Leopold just returned from another week-long reporting visit, and interviewed the new commander, Rear Admiral Richard Butler, who says he supports Obama’s call to shut it down; the commander who opened the prison in 2002, Maj. Gen. Lenhart, recently said it never should have been opened. Attorney Robert Wagstaff details how the offshore prison violates basic notions of fair play, due process, and the rule of law, and calls Obama out for weak leadership. Leopold and Wagstaff talk about the impediments to shutdown, especially in the cases of about 45 prisoners who are told they will not be charged or tried–nor released–indefinitely.
Jason Leopold is an investigative journalist who has been covering Guantanamo for many years and now reports for Al Jazeera. Robert H. Wagstaff is a constitutional lawyer based in Anchorage, Alaska and past president of the Alaska Bar Assn. His new book from Oxford University Press is Terror Detentions and the Rule of Law: US and UK Perspectives.
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