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The Talking Dog: Any thoughts on where the end game will go as far as the court system?
H. Candace Gorman: I don’t have much confidence in the courts (other than the Supreme Court) doing anything to help these men get their day in court. I think the men will continue to dribble out of Guantanamo. Now there is 395. Next month another 20 or 30 will be gone, and so on….
The Talking Dog: Do you have any thoughts on whether the recent Cindy Sheehan protest will do any good, or if any protests have done any good?
H. Candace Gorman: I am a strong believer in public protests. I am one of the attorneys representing protestors that were arrested in Chicago at the start of the Iraqi war. The case has been dragging on while we wait for the judge to rule on the city’s summary judgment motion, at first I was mad it was taking so long… now I couldn’t be happier. It will be hard to find a jury that will think my clients were wrong in protesting but I couldn’t say the same two years ago. Protests get people thinking and talking, that is always good. Cindy Sheehan is my hero. She has done more to bring attention to the travesty of the war in Iraq (and now the travesty at Guantanamo) than anyone else.The
Talking Dog: Is there any sense that public attitudes are shifting-- that the public is realizing that with over half of the detainees just summarily released, they are hardly the worst of the worst...
H. Candace Gorman: Those released are presumably "the best of the worst!" Unfortunately, so far, my clients are still in the "middle of the worst". Of course, this isn't really funny... The public attitude is shifting the more it learns... it's not so much a matter of time, as it is about facts slowly accumulating, realizing what is happening.
The Talking Dog: Well at least we're feeding the detainees lemon chicken and rice pilaf...
H. Candace Gorman: Funny you should say that; a couple of detainees have complained that they are gaining weight... they are being fed a high carbohydrate diet of late, which may be a new strategy to fatten them up to make them more complacent prisoners... or at least more lethargic.
The Talking Dog: Is there anything else that I should have asked you, or anything else that my readers or the public needs to know about Gitmo, the war on terror, the government's detention policy, or its regard for our Constitution?
H. Candace Gorman: We should all be very concerned about what this Administration is doing. This week the Pentagon announced it is looking at our bank records, not because they think anything criminal is going on but because they can learn stuff…They are listening to our phone calls and reading our emails… Every day there is something new and illegal that we learn they are doing… it is hard to keep up. Harder still to stop them from breaking the law. But we must.
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