America's Disappeared Secret Imprisonment, Detainees, and the War on Terror

by Meeropol, Rachel; Brody, Reed; Olshansky, Barbara; Ratner, Michael; Watt, Steven Macpherson

• ISBN13: 9781583226452
• ISBN10: 1583226451
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-06-01
• Publisher: Seven Stories Press

Summary

September 11, 2001, sparked a firestorm of racial profiling, detentions and deportations by the United States government so grievous as to evoke the shameful internment of Japanese Americans of more than half a century past. Thousands have been imprisoned without either trial or any kind of judicial hearing: detained, often indefinitely, solely on the say-so of the executive. Yet knowledge of the particular circumstances and incidents of the detentions remains dim. America's Disappeared: Secret Imprisonment Detainees and the "War on Terror" brings together, for the first time, detainees' own testimonies with a comprehensive framework for understanding the issues by leading constitutional scholars working for their release. Going beyond the prevailing accounts to a detailed exploration of detention-the forms currently in use, and the conditions of each-the authors authoritatively refute its alleged justifications, boldly exploring its human costs. Beginning with a catalogue of dragnet schemes--voluntary interviews, NSEERs, the targeting of foreign students-America's Disappeared proceeds to document the blunt reality of this program of detention, presenting detainees' chilling accounts of solitary confinement, isolation, and physical and mental abuse. Turning to a history of American detention policy, the book surveys U.S. opposition to these illegal practices undertaken outside our borders and warns of the dangerous precedent set by this homegrown example. Michael Ratner is president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He has led several cases representing detainees held at Camp X-Ray in Cuba; Rachel Meeropol is the Center's equal justice work fellow; Barbara Olshansky is the assistant legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of Secret Trials and Executions; Steven MacPherson Watt is human rights fellow at the Center.

Author Biography

RACHEL MEEROPOL is a fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York City. BARBARA OLSHANSKY is the Leah Kaplan Distinguished Professor in Human Rights at Stanford University. MICHAEL RATNER is the President of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Table of Contents

Introduction	p. 11
Open letter to President George W. Bush from two former detainees	p. 26
The Guantanamo prisoners	p. 31
Statement	p. 60
Torture, "stress and duress," and rendition as counterterrorism tools	p. 72
The road to Abu Ghraib	p. 113
Statement	p. 130
Looking for hope : life as an immigration detainee	p. 132
Statement	p. 137
The post-9/11 terrorism investigation and immigration detention	p. 144
Statement	p. 171
What does it mean to be an "enemy combatant"?	p. 179
Poem for my mother	p. 226
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