NDAA: Obama Signs Law Restricting Transfer of Gitmo Prisoners, Expands Indefinite Detention

It has been 10 years since the United States began detaining people at its military base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. We speak with someone who has worked to defend the rights of those prisoners for the last decade: Michael Ratner, president emeritus of the Center for Constitutional Rights. While dozens continue to face an unknown future at Guantánamo, we ask Ratner to comment on President Obama's recent approval of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which some legal experts say would authorize the military to indefinitely jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect — without charge or trial. "The center represented the first people out of Guantánamo over 10 years ago. At that time, the detention of people, the military trial was all done by a presidential order. When Obama took office, he continued the same actions. And recently, in the NDAA, those actions, the ability to detain people, the ability to use military commissions, et cetera, were actually put into law. And Obama, contrary to his claim that he was going to veto it, signed it, making him the first president ever in the United States to sign into law indefinite detention as part of the policy of the United States." Ratner adds that the NDAA, "puts very heavy restrictions on moving people out of Guantánamo... We are now in the longest period, almost a year, in which nobody has been transferred out of Guantánamo."

To watch the complete daily, independent news hour, read the transcript, download the podcast, and for 10 years of Democracy Now! reports on Guantánamo, visit

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