Habeas Schmabeas: A new first hand report on what we are doing at GTMO!

Habeas Schmabeas

The right of habeas corpus has been a part of this country's legal tradition longer than we've actually been a country. It means the government has to explain why it's holding a person in custody.

But now, the war on terror has nixed many of the rules we used to think of as fundamental. At Guantanamo Bay, our government initially claimed that the prisoners should not be covered by habeas – or even by the Geneva Conventions – because they're the most fearsome terrorist enemies we have.

But is that true? Is it a camp full of terrorists, or a camp full of our mistakes? Reporter Jack Hitt unveils everything we know about who these prisoners are. In interviews with two former detainees, he finds out the consequences of taking away habeas, for them and for us.

Broadcast the weekend of March 10-12 in most places, or here via RealAudio next week.

Here's the link for the "This American Life" site and archive: <http://www.thislife.org/>

I think this is the link for when the Real Audio will be available, but the RA link doesn't work yet: <http://207.70.82.73/pages/home2.html>