Margulies, Joseph - short clip - WhatGuantanamoHasBecome
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| - | There was a thing that Guantanamo had become, | 0:01 |
| and its purpose in life | 0:05 | |
| was as an isolated interrogation chamber, | 0:08 | |
| a massive interrogation chamber, | 0:15 | |
| free from any outside interference. | 0:18 | |
| And I remember telling, and it was after Rasul, | 0:21 | |
| that's when all the other lawyers came in, | 0:24 | |
| because now we're entitled | 0:26 | |
| to file habeas petitions on behalf of other people. | 0:26 | |
| So everybody gets a shot, so we need lawyers. | 0:29 | |
| And I remember telling those lawyers, | 0:32 | |
| "The most important thing we can do | 0:35 | |
| "to alter the character of Guantanamo | 0:38 | |
| "is for you to go to the base." | 0:40 | |
| "Because," what I used to say is, | 0:42 | |
| "if we open it up, they'll shut it down." | 0:45 | |
| Because it can't exist in the form that it had become. | 0:48 | |
| What I would say to people is, | 0:55 | |
| "Look, when you can bring your client a personal pan pizza, | 0:57 | |
| "it is no longer a prison beyond the law." | 1:01 | |
| You know, "I don't care what else you have, | 1:04 | |
| "if you can bring your client fresh fruit, | 1:05 | |
| "and a cup of coffee, | 1:07 | |
| "and sit and play cards with him, | 1:09 | |
| "its purpose as an interrogation chamber has ended." | 1:11 | |
| And so I thought, "Well, there's no purpose | 1:15 | |
| "in this interrogation chamber." | 1:17 | |
| And they did let a lot of people go. | 1:18 | |
| What I didn't realize is what would happen is, | 1:20 | |
| it would transform from an interrogation chamber | 1:23 | |
| just to a long-term detention center, | 1:25 | |
| and that's what it now is. | 1:27 | |
| And as it became more politicized, | 1:29 | |
| it became more difficult to, | 1:31 | |
| then you're trying to move symbols rather than people. | 1:33 | |
| And then it became much more entrenched. | 1:36 | |
| That's where we are now. | 1:39 | |
| And I didn't foresee that. | 1:40 |
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