Patrick Leahy: “it has been well over 3 years since the administration began to hold detainees at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay…”

“it has been well over 3 years since the administration began to hold detainees at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The first batch of then only 20 detainees arrived in January 2002. There are now more than 500 detainees at Guantanamo. I cannot give you an exact number because our own Government refused to tell the American people an exact number. In fact, there is much that we do not know about our Government's activities at Guantanamo. From the start, the administration's answer to every question regarding this secret detention facility has been: Trust us. Trust us that we know the law and that we will comply with it. Trust us to treat detainees humanely and in accordance with our laws and treaties and the great and wonderful traditions of the United States. Trust us that Guantanamo will make Americans safer. More than 3 years later, the one thing we know for sure about Guantanamo is that any trust we may have had was misplaced. First, the administration either did not know or did not follow the law. The list of reversals of this administration's policies and practices at Guantanamo is long. From the Supreme Court's rejection of the claim that Guantanamo Bay is a land of legal limbo or, as one administration official said, ``the legal equivalent of outer space,'' to a recent district court holding that the current military commission regulations are unlawful, there is much that needs attention and correction.…”