In her remarkable cover story this month, senior writer Julie Triedman chronicles the race against the clock for the pro bono lawyers representing 114 detainees who remain imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, most of them without being charged.
President Barack Obama has failed to close the notorious prison—but at least his condemnation of Guantánamo has kept the issue in the public consciousness. By contrast, no candidate for his job has indicated that closing Guantánamo will be a priority. After all, there’s no political constituency for the detainees, most of whom were arrested in the early 2000s on suspicion of being al-Qaida or Taliban fighters. And so lawyers are doing what they can while Obama is still in office.
