User:Nukerebel/Detainee Treatment Act

The Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 was an act passed by the United States Congress. Offered as an amendment to a supplemental defense spending bill, it contained provisions relating to treatment of persons in custody of the Department Defense, and administration of detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including:

Restricting interrogation methods to those defined in the U.S. Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation Prohibiting "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment" of any prisoner of the U.S. Government Directing the DOD to establish Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) Establishing the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals as having jurisdiction to hear appeals of CSRT decisions

Background
The DTA was proposed and passed in the wake of revelations of coercive, abusive and degrading treatment of persons captured in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as publicly unexplained deaths of persons in U.S. custody, as well as a Justice Department probe into interrogation tactics.

Senator John McCain of Arizona, himself a survivor of torture while a prisoner of war in Vietnam, was one of the leading voices for the passage of the DTA, as was Congressman John Murtha, a retired marine colonel.

There was debate as to the extent that the prohibition on torture would be applied. Some congressmen, as well as Vice President Cheney, argued that, while the Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation was acceptable for use by the military, the CIA should be exempt from such restrictions.

The DTA was also intended to address the aftermath of supreme court cases in which the court found that U.S. citizens detained as enemy combatants (Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 2004) and foreign nationals held in places where the U.S. exercises "plenary and exclusive jurisdiction" (Rasul v. Bush, 2004), have the right to contest their imprisonment in court.

Rasul v. Bush, in which the Supreme Court found that, as the United States exercised "plenary and exclusive jurisdiction" over the Guantanamo Bay naval base, persons held there had access to the U.S. court system to challenge their detention.

Part of the legal stratagem that the Bush administration employed with respect to persons captured in the war on terror was that as Al Qaeda is a non-state entity, the U.S. cannot truly be engaged in a war, and thus those captured were neither prisoners of war nor subject to the Geneva Conventions. In light of Hamdi and Rasul, the establishment of CSRTs was designed to meet the requirement of a competent tribunal, satisfying the

Subsequent litigation and legislation
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 2006:

Military Commissions Act of 2006:

Al Odah v. Bush

Boumediene v. Bush, 2008: The supreme court held that

The DTA was proposed and passed in the wake of litigation surrounding the status of prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,

Treatment of prisoners
Allegations of mistreatment and torture of prisoners in the War on Terror emerged in XXXX, including:
 * Waterboarding and "enhanced interrogation techniques" during interrogations
 * Abuse of prisoners by guards

Legal status of Guantanamo Bay Detainees
Many prisoners captured in Afghanistan and Iraq during the Global War on Terror were brought to the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba with the belief that, not under the "ultimate sovereignty" of the United States, it could be operated as a prisoner of war camp exempt from judicial review. In 2003, however, the Supreme Court disagreed, ruling in Rasul v. Bush that the United States Guantanamo base was under "plenary and exclusive jurisdiction" of the United States, and aliens held there were entitled to habeas relief.

the authority granted the president under the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, giving the President XXX, were

as well as to address revelations of "enhanced interrogation techniques" of prisoners in U.S. custody.