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From WGBH in Boston this is the Emily Rooney show. It's Tuesday February 23rd 2010. Who or what's to blame for overreaction to weather reports of new snow in one corner Robert David Sullivan who blames Hollywood in the other corner. The editors of the Guantanamo lawyers a new book inside a prison outside the law. Never before heard tales. And the Boston Globe's Michael Kranish explains why Thomas Jefferson once said One war is enough for the life of one man. All that and more today on the show. But first. The news. From NPR News in Washington on CORBA Coleman the president of Toyota's North American operations says he is sorry his company bungled safety issues. James Lentz is telling a congressional hearing the

automaker failed to live up to its reputation but he's contradicting lawmakers who say issues with Toyota brakes and gas pedals are linked to electronics problems. Lawmakers such as Californias Henry Waxman also blame the federal government for lax oversight. Carmakers have entered the electronics era but seem stuck in a mechanical mindset. We need to make sure the Federal Safety Agency has the tools and resources it needs to ensure the safety of the electronic controls and onboard computers that run today's automobiles Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood says his agency will ensure Toyotas are safe. Consumer confidence took a steep tumble this month the drop appeared to be tied to concern about the job market. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports. The Conference Board said its index of consumer confidence fell from fifty six point five in January to a 10 month low of forty six in February. That was a much bigger decline than economists had expected. The organization said consumers were more

pessimistic about current economic conditions than it any time in twenty seven years. The number of people who expect business conditions to improve over the next six months was also down sharply. The Conference Board said people were responding to the survey were noticeably more worried about the job market and about their individual income prospects. Consumer confidence is considered a good barometer of economic health and the drop in the index suggests that consumer spending will decline something that could slow the economic recovery. Jim Zarroli NPR News New York. A state legislative committee in California will hear today from executives of health insurer Anthem Blue Cross. Steve Julian of member station KPCC says they'll testify about an attempt to raise premiums by as much as 39 percent. The company announced the proposed rate increase in November and it quickly became a flash point in the national debate over health care reform. President Obama yesterday put forward a national health care plan that would give the government the authority to deny or limit premium

increases or demand rebates for consumers. Anthem Blue Cross says it needs to increase premiums because many of its younger healthier customers drop their coverage during the recession leaving an older customer base more prone to illness. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius noted last week that profits for the country's 10 largest insurance companies paid inflation in the last decade 10 to 1 and thems parent WellPoint reported a 2.7 billion dollar profit in the last quarter of 2009. For NPR News I'm Steve Julien in Los Angeles. On Wall Street the Dow Jones Industrials are down 69 points at ten thousand three hundred thirteen. The Nasdaq is down 30. This is NPR News. Thirty is at an Air Force Base outside of Phoenix say officers shot two men who drove on to the base allegedly in a stolen car. One of the men died. No one else was hurt. A spokesman for Luke Air Force Base Captain Jerry Gonzales says the men sped through a gate but were caught at a roadblock further inside the incident began as a police

chase. Indonesian police say more than 60 people are feared dead after a landslide buried tea plantation workers in West Java. At least five bodies have been recovered thus far. Chad Bouchard reports from Jakarta. The landslide swept through a mountainous village about 90 miles southeast of Jakarta after several days of torrential rain. Dozens of houses at a tea plantation were buried up to their roots in mud roads to the area were cut off in the deluge preventing heavy equipment from helping in rescue efforts. Villagers worked into the night removing debris with farm tools and bare hands to search for survivors. Thousands of people in Jakarta and nearby Benda own have been forced from their homes over the last two weeks by flooding triggered by monsoon rains deadly landslides and floods are a yearly occurrence in Indonesia. Rampant deforestation and poor management of storm water have been blamed for worsening the effect of seasonal rainfall. For NPR News I'm Chad Bouchard in Jakarta. Voters in the Netherlands will choose a new government in early June. The current government resigned after the coalition cabinet could not resolve the dispute over the Netherlands role in NATO's

effort in Afghanistan. The Dutch government refused NATO's request to keep troops in southern Afghanistan and dozen liberal members of the Dutch government then quit the current Dutch prime minister has been asked to stay on. He will serve as a caretaker until the elections. I'm CORBA Coleman NPR News from Washington. Support for NPR comes from Warner Home Video presenting the informant. The new comedy starring Matt Damon and directed by Steven Soderbergh available on Blu-Ray and DVD today. It's live and it's local. Coming up next two hours of local talk the Emily Rooney show and the Kelly Crossley Show. Only on WGBH. Good afternoon you're listening to the Emily Rooney show. I'm Emily Rooney. When I got to work early this morning people around me were talking about the weather

again. Apparently were some kind of a wintry mix tonight and tomorrow I don't know. I tune out all information about the weather. I just I just don't hear it anymore. I don't care. Now before you all jump on me and say oh that must be because I live some privileged life or somebody comes over and shovels my own snow and that's not it. I actually really enjoy shoveling snow. I think it's great exercise it's outside. It's something you can actually see progress with I like shoveling that's not it. And I actually like snow. I just tune out the weather because it doesn't seem to have any bearing and also I'm sort of game for whatever gets delivered. All right. So that's out of the way but his listeners know I've been critical really kind of aghast at our collective cancel it mentality. Something that seems to be relatively new to New Englanders theories abound over what's causing all this overreaction. One came this weekend from my first guest Robert David Sullivan the managing editor of Commonwealth magazine who wrote a piece in the Ideas section of Sunday's Globe called

Attack of the light drizzle. In it Sullivan writes that weather is now packaged as pre-sold. It's going up pre-sold public drama with its own distinct language she says. The urgent graphics and veiled threats have the roots in Hollywood not meterology. And then it's pure hype. I have another theory. But first let's get to Robert Sullivan who's going to expound on his welcome. Thanks for coming. Thank you thank you for asking me. I almost can't because of the weather forecasts. I see. Yeah. Yeah it's supposed to post you know a wintry mix this afternoon. So wait just for a second. I went to Boston dotcom and this is really bland I have got to move this closer so I can read it. There's a really bland weather forecast here actually and maybe take my glasses off so I can get is as this afternoon cloudy a slight chance of snow. The snow likely tonight but if I read that in a really hyped up kind of voice and I said

winds gusting to 45 miles an hour as opposed to When's my gust to 45 miles an hour so you're saying it's the hype machine largely produced by local television which you think is a marketing ploy I think. Well that's part of it I don't think they create storms out of thin air there's just they're certainly basing their their hype on actual weather patterns but there is I think irresistible temptation to to make it a draw for people to tune into the news. There is some problem with declining audiences for newscasts. People deciding to do other things instead of watching the 11 o'clock news I think there is a pressure to say this you can't afford to miss us. You tell me about that. I'm sorry. There's no question about that. But you know people who produce the news news directors and producers they're the ones who make the decisions about where weather is played in a newscast and weather has been most of the season it leads the newscast no

matter what else is in the news that horrible convenience store shooting and robbery the other night. Amy Bishop whatever it is right weather generally leads it but the meteorologists themselves I'm going to defend. I don't think they hype. I don't I don't think they overhype it I think they say what's going to happen. I don't think they hype it. I think that's true I don't think they're asking to be given a more prominent role I don't think they're demanding you know put you know at the top of the newscaster or I'm going to walk or something like that I think it is decisions made higher up. And I'm sure they like the idea that they are given all these primetime spots now. They don't just show up at 11 o'clock they shop all throughout the evening they're tracking storms they're looking at radar they're really trying to figure out what's going to happen. Right. And a lot of it is I think kind of building up the suspense we don't know when the storm is going to start. We don't know how much. And I'm not saying that the meteorologists are kind of making

dramatic predictions for dramatic predictions sake but. In the absence of other news stories that sort of get people all together and that reach you know a broad audience I think there is more of an emphasis on this kind of news you can use news you can afford you but it's been going on for decades. That's why I kind of took issue with your piece because very well written not wrong but something has happened in the last couple of years maybe even five. Has nothing to do with the blizzard of 78 because most people weren't even around they had no recollection of it they weren't here right you know that's it's a generational thing. A lot of people remember that December storm of 0 7 where everybody got let out early and there's a big traffic snarl I was kind of an adventure in my mind. I even was plotting my way to get home that day. And it was it was inconvenient. That is the root of my theory about this whole thing. People have become completely averse

to any kind of inconvenience we're not used to inconvenience anymore. You know we've got cell phones and trackers and transponders we can watch TiVo or Comcast On Demand. Everything that used to be a hassle or somewhat of a hassle everything. But a lot of things paying bills online it's all going away. The one thing we cannot control is the weather. And so we just said that you know what let's just cancel it. We'll just we'll just cancel the party cancel school cancel government cancel dinner plans because it's in convenient. I thought well I think that's a good point I mean I have dinner plans this evening that I half expect. I'm waiting for that how to tell. I know that you know to me what day was that the 12th or whatever. I couldn't believe it. Not only that the people I was having dinner with live downtown and that's where I live. We were walking across the street. Well a lot of times you could be driving is a problem but the Teesta works

if you're meeting somebody downtown but I don't want that problem. You know a lot of people do use it as I guess an excuse to get out of something or they just get so flipped out by the prospect of being. Looking for a parking space when bad weather is something I don't think also in the case of government school officials government they're concerned about somebody blaming them for something going wrong. If there's an accident if there the bus slides if you know they get kids get caught in traffic and they're on a bus for three hours so it's part of it is the blame. I guess what I'm saying is I don't see that the weather forecasts themselves have changed so dramatically in the last 20 years. I think we've all changed. We've we've absorbed this material differently and we collectively overreact. I think there's something to that and I don't think they're completely mutually exclusive theories

because certainly when Boston canceled schools before a flake of snow falls. I'm sure that part of it is not as wanting to avoid blame and wanting to make sure there are no repercussions if something happens but I think a lot of it. They also already receive calls from parents and educators who are already tracking the storm through the weather forecasts and they're what they would say you know. What are you going to do about this you can be whole school tomorrow. So I think there is. Which didn't used to be the case. No I don't think you know I grew up here so that certainly wasn't the case when I was growing up. Yeah. Most of the time you're waiting for school to be canceled. And it wasn't. You said things like you know the meteorologists use squishy language like up to a foot as if though there's some intentional. Deception going on that they they don't really want you to know but they don't know and that's what goes back to what I was saying about all these other things that we've been able to nail down in our lives through

technology. I'm not really sure why the technology or the science of meteorology is still so vague it seems to me it should be you should be able to tell me what's going to do in Brighton what's it going to in Wellesley what's it going to do a doubt that I think eventually we probably will have that within reason. But right now we don't. And since we've gotten a grip on so many other things this is this is this is a frustration. There's a high expectation I know when I have a trip planned I'll look at the six to 10 day forecast and pack accordingly and then if it changes the night before I leave I get all annoyed. You know I can already play in this now they're telling me it's going to be 20 degrees warmer and this is something that somebody's got to do something about this but so yeah why don't you adopt my philosophy just tone it out. It's a very new We're going to see here with a really terrific view. It's cloudy low hanging darkish clouds sun breaking through a little bit here comes a gentleman with no hat on that means it can't be too cold. So you just kind of judge these things for yourself and

react appropriately. I think I'm not going to play in my tennis game tonight. Well I close the piece but somebody else might. That's true that's true. When I close a police piece by talking about people who do kind of tune out the weather forecasts and I mention something about like Facebook people just yeah it was actually my brother live just had to go on a trip and he just post on Facebook what's the weather like in New Hampshire right now and somebody told him and that was it. Yeah. Just well you know you're you're not right there's no question that it has become a marketable commodity it's one of those things that changes for the fact that it can't be nailed down. There's an excitement to it. It's not something that's in the past a lot of news has already happened. But this is something that's come in you can anticipate it but the part that I disagree with you is that that it's become more Hollywood that there's sort of an intentional that the music and the graphics are sort of an intended to whip you up. It's basically always been that way. It's

us who have changed. We can't handle it. Well. MICHAEL VINCENT You know you just heard from some meteorologists and news directors and managers must have said wait a minute this guy works for a weekly news magazine What does he know for a while whether pork is not directly although they might have contact with The Globe and they hiding it from me so maybe the letters are coming. Yeah I'm sure you might see a familiar name there among them. Oh I can't wait to see the letters page next week. A lot of people agree with you. A lot of people think that this is sort of some conspiracy whipped up by the meteorologists you know even Mayor Menino got in on the act last week and said you know how disappointed he was he thought it was been totally hyped and Mish Michaels the former weather gal for WBEZ you know bit back and said that's just not true and totally inaccurate in talking to Robert David Sullivan who wrote this piece for The Boston Globe Ideas section last Sunday called Attack of the light drizzle and in which he attacked meteorologists and

Hollywood hype for overreaction that we're all having to the weather and I claim it's us not the weather guys. Well I don't think I'm not a conspiracy theorist so I'm going to say that this was an intentional change of direction but I do think news in general has kind of tended toward Hollywood hype and. There's been sort of an acquiescence in it. And whether I mean I think a lot of celebrity news used to be very hyped and I don't think that happens much anymore because it's just not as much of a topic that everybody follows like the weather and celebrity news that's true because everybody has a different definition everybody follows the news except maybe the weather I mean. OK. My guest has been Robert David Sullivan managing editor of Commonwealth magazine who wrote the piece. Attack of a light drizzle and you can see that we'll have a link from our website to that piece. And we want to hear what you think what do you think about what's driving people to overreact to the weather do you blame meteorologist marketing ploys or

yourselves for fearing inconvenience. E-mail us at Emily Rooney show at WGBH dot org or visit us on the web at WGBH dot org slash Emily Ronie or you can link to our Facebook and Twitter pages and find that article by Robert David Sullivan. We're going to take a short break when we return. Who are all those prisoners in Guantanamo. Are they terrorists says former Vice President Dick Cheney believes. Or are they innocent men sold into presence into prison. Our next guest believes they have the answer you're listening to the Emily Rooney show. We'll be right back. Support for WGBH comes from you. And from Huntington Theatre Company presenting two new comedies. Stick Fly by Lydia diamond starting Friday. And the off-Broadway hit Becky shot by Gina G and fredo starting March 5th. Huntingdon theatre dot org. And from Skinner auctioneers and appraisers of antiques and fine art. You might consider auction when downsizing a home or disposing of an estate. Sixty auctions annually 20 collecting categories Boston in Marlborough online at Skinner

Inc dot com. Hi I'm Ryan O'Donovan and on Saturday March 20th I'll be hosting the fifth annual presentation of a St. Patrick's Day Celtic soldier at Sanders Theatre at Harvard University. Frankie Gavin and Aidan and Tony McManus made Gilchrist will all be joining me and I hope you will too. Sign up for the WGBH Celtic club with a contribution of one hundred twenty dollars and you'll receive two complimentary tickets to the show. All of the details are online at WGBH dot org slash Celtic. You're listening to eighty nine point seven WGBH Boston is an NPR station for news context and analysis with MORNING EDITION. The takeaway and the Diane Rehm Show explore ideas with us all day long

here on the new eighty nine point seven. WGBH. I'm Kelli Crossley. Tune in for a wide ranging conversation. That's today at 1:00 after the Emily Rooney show only here on the new eighty nine point seven WGBH Clawson to NPR stations for news and culture. Hello again this is the Emily Rooney show on Emily Ronie. It takes a lot of guts to even consider what rights prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay might have. But lawyers from all over the United States were game to try all for varying reasons which are explained in a new book Guantanamo lawyers inside a prison outside the law. The book is edited by my guests here in the studio. Mark Denbeaux a professor of law at Seton Hall Law School and Jonathan heighth its

attorney with the National Security Project of the American Civil Liberties Union welcome. Gentleman I just I want to I want to get into what drove you to even consider representing these people but something just jumped out at me when I started going through the manuscript last night. You say that 86 percent of the detainees people held of the seven hundred fifty or so who were held when when you first start first got involved were sold into captivity. So by people who had gotten these flyers from Turkey basically turned somebody and if you think they are al Qaeda or Taliban and in exchange for money these people were rounded up and shipped to Guantanamo. I'll start with you. Mark how do you know that's true. OK I think that what we know are the most certain fact we know is that 4 percent of those in Guantanamo were picked up by U.S. forces of any sort. So the 96 percent were picked up by tribal warlords

chieftains were local law enforcement people on the border. They were all picked up in the area where the leaflets and bodies are dropped. The actual amount of dollars paid for them the leaflets promised enormous sums of money the actual amount spent has not been released by the governor who paid it who paid the money. Well the United States did. We paid money and we did it to Pakistanis. The Pakistani government has admitted that millions of dollars was received by virtue of this process. Sometimes they would be a Pakistani policeman would turn somebody in. Mostly they turned in non Pakistani air Arabs who are not from Pakistan. If the Pakistanis turned them in. All right well just because they were paid to turn people in does that mean these people or more innocent than I think. Well I think it's a cast a lot of doubt on the government's assertion that these people Kuantan M-O were the worst of the worst the facts have not borne that out.

And what's also important is not only were prisoners sold into bounty not picked up by U.S. forces but there was no system of error correction put in place. Prisoners were brought to Guantanamo and deliberately denied any kind of fair process and access to the U.S. courts. And this was to hide mistreatment and to hide abuse. But what would be the end result of doing that. I mean if they wanted to break people down if they were I know there was torture everything else it is a highly charged word of course but what would be the point of that. To round up innocent people if they were indeed innocent and break them down what would be the point. Well the point was just it was an indiscriminate dragnet. There was no we deliberately avoided the safeguards that we've used in prior conflicts that the military had actually suggested use using and they were overruled by civilian officials in Washington it was just an effort to just round people up and then try to exploit intelligence out of them but they you so often we had the

wrong people. And we also use tactics that are not only illegal but don't produce any kind of useful intelligence of course if you talk to the military intelligence people in the army and we've done that. They are. Their position is very simple the job of the military intelligence is to find out what's over the next hill what's coming at them. It's not their job to find out who's good or bad. And instead what happened to them were people turned in thousands of people for bodies not many people who went other places than Guantanamo turned them in for bounties and then the military intelligence people were told sort out who are the good people from the bad people. And as one military intelligence analyst said we don't do that. We don't know how to do that. And then the question became OK who should we release. So what really happened in this case was they would sweep in lots and lots of people and then the military intelligence people were supposed to say let this person go he's OK. And they knew nothing about them because everybody who was brought in was brought in based on information unknown and

untested by military intelligence or the United States even to this day. Mark Denbeaux and Jonathan Heifetz authors and editors of the new book Guantanamo lawyers inside a prison outside the law. How did you Jonathan get involved in going to Guantanamo Bay and representing some of the prisoners there what was your motivation. Well I had been involved previously in representing prisoners and also immigrants people who were denied often denied rights denied access to the courts. And I got in basically through that work and through my work on corpus which is really the most fundamental right in our Constitution it's the right that if you were detained by the government to be able to go to court and to require the government to produce a basis for your detention it really lies at the essence of our society presents of being essentially you have the right to confront. Exactly. And these these people did not for the most part know they did not they the United States the Bush administration brought the prisoners to Guantanamo deliberately

because they thought they would be outside the reach of ABS corpus and we've spent the last eight years fighting for that right against the government and also against two attempts by the United States Congress to strip that right of prisoners that basic right just to be able to go to court to determine if there's a basis for your detention. And of course it took you a long time to even get inside the prison or talk to anybody. Tell me a couple of personal stories. I'm talking to Mark Denbeaux and Jonathan Heifetz authors of the book Guantanamo lawyers. Who did you talk to. Who are some of the people you met. These are people who have been isolated from their families had no representation and you know giving them bad food and often kept in isolated cells not able to talk to other prisoners. OK I think the experience is fairly common at the beginning in terms of what we learn from them. We go down to go and get there through a long process walk into a room and meet somebody chained to the floor who didn't know who you were who didn't know

why either you'd be there didn't know what a lawyer was in many cases and believed we were interrogators. And when you define And the last thing it was there has had to be a language barrier. Oh you had to bring a translator and they didn't always trust our translators so they didn't. They thought we were interrogators with other translators. My client had already been interviewed by somebody who had come in and told him he was his lawyer when he was really an interrogator. So there was a huge burden overcoming that. And you really couldn't ask questions because if you ask questions they thought you were an interrogator. My favorite sort of insight into the experience was that took me five visits before my client told me about the most stark thing. And it was a fact that I had learned from other people before I arrived. And that was my client had been picked up in Iran held in five different prisons in Iran. He said there are worse jails in the world in Guantanamo. And he said he was taken there and held by the CIA in what was called the prison of darkness in Kabul. It took me five times for him to tell me that in the prison of Darkness was one of the more dramatic and terrifying moments

and one I've always remembered was people have trouble believing that Iran was the source of the basis for the detention of my client. And it was the CIA who detained him in the prison of darkness which meant literal darkness inside a room inside a room made to stand up day and night. All with it on hand chained to the wall so you couldn't sit in a room where the ceiling was too high so you could too low so you couldn't quite stand. I guess what bothered me was the story was gruesome. How long was he in that condition. He doesn't know the number of days. He said it's dark. There's no time there's no clock. The best evidence we have is he was able to figure out that was Ramadan when he was going in and he was able to work out some of the holidays so for the prison of darkness he thinks it was not much more than two months in total dark What was he charged with. Well actually he was charged with having spent 10 days in a training camp in Afghanistan that is not run by al Qaeda that was he doing in a training camp. Well actually wasn't there in the Cheney camp that's what he was charged with.

The evidence he was in a training camp was obtained during the course of the interviews while he was there. He was actually somebody is missing most of the lefthand who had become a drug problem and had decided to go out of Germany where he was and go to Pakistan and from there we started bombing he fled Pakistan to Iran and that's what eventually happened to him. He has been approved for release twice both by the Bush administration by the Obama administration and he actually was flown out of Guantanamo about three and a half weeks ago to a country we're not yet allowed to mention but to which he agreed to go. My other client who they approved for release four years ago is still there talking to Mark Denbeaux and Jonathan Heifetz authors of the book One Ton of a lawyers inside a prison outside the law. Jonathan who who have you been representing there. Well one detainee I represented recently a Kuantan M-A was an individual named Mohammed Jawad. He was a young boy when he was arrested probably about

14 years old in December of 2002 in connection with a grenade attack on a. Someone threw a grenade in a crowded marketplace at a passing U.S. military vehicle that injured two U.S. service members an interpreter and the police. The Afghan police just it was chaos and they just grabbed this young kid. They they took him to the police station they beat him within an inch of his life for forced a confession out of him. Hand him over that night to the U.S. intelligence you know U.S. officials you know went on TV saying they got the bad guy tried to get in good with the U.S. by by doing that. The U.S. also forced a confession through coercion and other other torture out of that night. And once that once they had the false confessions he basically disappeared into the vortex. How do you know it's false. Well we know it's false because first I mean a number of different things I mean the confessions are totally different coerced they're coerced and they're different. And there's been there's been no evidence.

And ultimately a federal judge ruled that there was no evidence to hold him and it that his detention was illegal. But that was such you know what does that make him innocent. You you may be convinced of it. Well I mean certainly the confessions were false. He's denied the allegations and they've produced no evidence this was something that occurred in a crowded market place with about hundreds of people around. And yet there was never any witness why wasn't he brought to justice in his own country why was he for instance shipped to Guantanamo. Well that's I think one of the key problems is the first by the way he you know he made a pitstop if you will. And he was held in Bagram for two months at the worst time there when when prisoners were two prisoners had just been killed. The deaths that you may have seen in the film Taxi to the dark side. It was a terrifying experience there and he was grossly mistreated and he was a Kuantan of where the abuse

continued. And this was the idea that we just sort of rounded up people willy nilly. We disregarded basic tools and practices of interrogation we disregarded the laws and he was taken to Guantanamo. And to give you an illustration of just how how bad and how how. So many of the tensions are the United States government viewed this case of even on the allegations basically a teenager who threw a grenade at a military vehicle as as as one as their biggest one of their biggest war crimes cases. I mean it goes to show sort of put in perspective he was actually acting on Tata Mo and ultimately the case fell apart and we ultimately were able to secure his release through habeas corpus but only after six plus years of detention because a federal judge finally said Look you've got to produce some evidence and the government had no evidence other than torture statements. I'm talking to Jonathan Heifetz and Mark Denbeaux authors of Guantanamo lawyers inside a

prison outside the law. So I don't have to tell you this. You're on an unpopular crusade here with a lot of Americans. I'm sure you listen to talk radio not this show of course but the talk radio that's critical of the Obama administration critical for releasing any of these prisoners saying these are the worst of the worst in their you know flying terrorists over to our country releasing them without trial. There are now about 200 prisoners left to Guantanamo of the seven hundred fifty or so that were there. How do you respond to that. Well I think it's was very simple first of all we start with the fact that the biggest darkest secret of all is the Bush administration without admitting that ever made a mistake without any court without anything at all released 500 people. So why did they let 500 people of the worst of the worst go. And I think it's fair for somebody to ask that question and say there must be some explanation for how two thirds of the people were released unilaterally totally by the executive power of the Bush administration.

I think that's the first thing that we have to recognize. The second thing is every time somebody has been had a hearing 75 percent of the remaining worst of the worst are found to have no basis for their detention. I think the hardest part for representing this is that none of these people virtually none of them are even charged with crimes. They're not charged with being terrorists. They're charged actually with having been in certain place at a certain time. How do you how does this work for you. I mean is it pro bono. Is there a pool of money somewhere. Mark Denbeaux How does it work. Well my university Seton Hall University has paid all of our out-of-pocket expenses which is really travel costs and translators and that's very very expensive. That's true some were I'm lucky to be involved with a university that supports this principle. But I think it's also true that other universities have dealt with it large firms have been paying the expenses there are lawyers in Boston who have small firms who've had to bear all the expenses themselves travelling down there. It's a very large burden and there's not been a

penny of government money and there's been no reimbursement of anybody expenses by anybody. And I think the lawyers have come to this they're commercial lawyers their bankruptcy lawyers people who became involved in this didn't start out in any ideological stripe whatsoever. They've just gone down there and it's pretty painful to look around and find out that if you look at the worst of the worst. Look there's two choices here. These are the worst of the worst doing give up airport security because most of these people couldn't find their way anywhere. I believe that. And if they're not the worst of the worst then we should really be afraid of our government believes they are. Because then there must be some scary people out there in our government thinks this bunch of sort of lost and wandering people are our threat talking to Mark Denbeaux and Jonathan Heifetz authors of Guantanamo on top of the lawyers inside a prison outside the law. Well Jonathan Hafetz. Our own United States prisoners and prisons are full of people here I've heard from too today. You know constantly telling me about the boondoggles that go inside about you know everything from no no programs

for sex offenders to the board of denials because there's no such thing as parole. You know somebody has to finish the sentence. When I heard from today he's finished. Twenty six years on a rape charge now he's in Bridgewater. He's never going to get out he doesn't have a lawyer. I guess my question is Why not devote the time to people here that have equally tough problems right here in the United States. What why are you taking your cause to prisoners at Guantanamo isn't it ideologically based on your part. I don't think it's ideologically based but certainly those you know situate circumstances you describe certainly merit attention as well. And you know I would also say it's not. Guantanamo doesn't come from nowhere I mean United States you know long had a history of over incarceration and other problems in terms of its dealing with prisoners but you know for I think what makes Guantanamo important and and worth the efforts that all

of the lawyers have put in is we're talking about locking people up without even a trial. We're talking about the assertion of the government's ability to be able to engage in any interrogation tactic. Up up and through including torture and that there really is no limit on government power. So in a way Guantanamo has tested and challenge the most basic ideas of the Constitution and the rule of law. And it's certainly not the only issue that lawyers fighting for the rule of law should address themselves to. But it's a vital issue. How did you to gain the trust of the prisoners Mark Denbeaux you talk about how they thought you were interrogator when you first went into. I love the story about bringing food and they made sure that whatever you brought for them that you wait too so it wasn't tainted or poisoned or something but food was a way of kind of gesturing that you were on friendly territory but how did they how did you gain their trust. Well I don't think I gained it very quickly and I don't think I've gained it very well.

I mean one of them said name one thing a lawyer has ever done that's ever helped a detainee in Guantanamo. When you tell me that I will then cooperate with you. It was a pretty chilling moment. He said Can you name one thing the lawyers ever done to help us. This was two years in code you know. I tried to my client had had a heart valve replaced he could barely walk. He was worried about his dental infection he asked me if I could get him toothpaste. And I couldn't. And I tried and I went through all the channels I mean when you can't get toothpaste for somebody why couldn't you get him toothpaste because it was held to be a comfort item. And the way it was set up meant they wanted total and complete control over their lives and if you could bring in toothpaste or somebody pretty soon you could bring in toilet paper. They took toilet paper away if you weren't cooperating. So what they had viewed toilet paper as a comfort item toothpaste was a comfort item. And the last thing they wanted was a lawyer to be able to come in and say well I got in toothpaste because that might be one thing that helped a detainee. So the answer is one of my clients is out. He wants to see me but he doesn't believe I'm the

reason that helped alone. Yes I was like you don't either. Well I don't think the lawyers won this big in court. Nobody's been released because a court ordered it. The closest thing you could say is the reason Guantanamo is being closed down is because the lawyers went there and are going there opened it up. If people didn't know what was happening in Guantanamo then they'd all still be there. I think that's why the place there are other places around the world that have not gotten such attention. But there are other people being detained without hearings anywhere else. Did you think Jonathan Hafetz that the Obama administration came to realize that a lot of these people were in fact not necessarily dangerous terrorists but people who had been rounded up and sold into prison. Well I think to some extent I mean I think the Obama administration certainly made some initial gestures promising to close Guantanamo within a year but that seemed very promising. But unfortunately the well not only has the deadline passed but the Obama administration has

maintained a couple of Cornerstone ideas of Guantanamo the idea of indefinite detention without charge or trial of individuals for suspected crimes. And second the use of military commissions a second class justice system for the few people that they are some of the few people they are going to charge at Guantanamo. And I think this is very misguided especially when you get a second class or third class judicial system if they stayed in Iran or Afghanistan or. Pakistan or anyplace else. Well if the prize money whatever brought they were brought to Guantanamo want to question Is it really it's what type of justice is the United States going to go out there. I mean also the United States does have though unlike other countries some other countries it has a first class justice system. The federal court system which has proven time and again that it's Kate as you said earlier the reason they were brought there in the first place is because a lot of people thought they wouldn't be able to have access to the United States justice system.

You know that's a point that's not why they were brought though they were brought there is kind of the equivalent of a perp walk. Right after 9/11 they want to show they're winning the war on terror so they were swept up 750 people of thousands have been turned in brought him to Guantanamo put him in an orange jumpsuit shackled them drugged them and put them in the cages in Camp X-Ray and would parade them out there saying we've caught the worst of the worst. They needed to say that. They're the only prop of success that was existing in January in February of 2002. So in if they had not brought them to Guantanamo they'd still be detained somewhere else and no one would know their mistake was bringing them there as a visual political statement showing success without regard to whether or not they had the right people and then their mistake was believing that the court couldn't a done address it or give constitutional rights because the Constitution doesn't apply outside the territory of the United States. Their big mistake was discovering that the court would find that a permanent base naval base in Guantanamo Cuba would require some constitutional rights to be given to people who were forcibly detained there.

Talking to Mark Denbeaux and Jonathan Heifetz authors of Guantanamo lawyers inside a prison outside the law. As we said a minute ago Johnson Johnson's only a couple hundred only a couple hundred people left there. Have conditions changed in the prison since five or six hundred people have left and since you've been there. Has anything changed. I think over time there's been some improvement in conditions I think because of. Initially because of the legal challenges and the publicity and now perhaps because of the change in administration we've had to retreat from. The harsh interrogation tactics. But to me I mean the you know enduring problem remains that you hold you're locking people up indefinitely potentially for life without putting them on trial and until we address that problem. Even if the prison doors are quite want on a more closed in the prisoners moved to Thompson Illinois we haven't ended one. All right. I've been talking to Jonathan Heifetz and Mark Denbeaux authors

and editors of Guantanamo lawyers inside a prison outside the law and they'll be at Porter Square Books tonight at 7:00 o'clock if anybody wants to go over for a reading in book event thanks so much gentlemen. Really appreciate you being here. Thank you very much. And we want to hear from you what do you think about the rights of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. E-mail us at Emily Rooney show at WGBH dot org or visit us on the web at WGBH dot org slash Emily Rooney or you can link to our Facebook and Twitter pages. We're going to take a short break. We'll be right back. Support for WGBH comes from you and from the Post Club. A dating service

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Eighty nine point seven WGBH is Boston's NPR station for news and culture and WGBH Channel 2 is Boston's PBS station for news culture. Thank you. And when you sign up at WGBH dot org you can win a DVD library that everyone at home will enjoy courtesy of the PBS online shop. Twenty titles in all including the best from Nova frontline and art there are rules and entry on line at WGBH dot org. This is eighty nine point seven WGBH Boston's NPR station for trusted voices and local conversation with FRESH AIR and the Emily Rooney show. The new eighty nine point seven WGBH. We're back you're listening to the Emily Rooney show I'm Emily Rooney. We could all learn a lesson from our third president Thomas Jefferson he said. I think one

war is enough for the life of one man. He was talking about the Revolutionary War of course. Now that's the subject of a new book by the Boston Globe's Michael Kranish flight from Monticello Thomas Jefferson at war. Welcome Michael. Thanks for having me. So this is a niche book and you it is. I mean it's fascinating by the way. I'm a big fan of Thomas Jefferson as well. He was our greatest president. How did you get so involved in this. Well I'm a reporter for The Boston Globe in our Washington bureau and I've written many presidential candidate profiles. And after doing a number of those I thought to myself Can I take the same technique and apply it to an area of history that I think hasn't been fully explored. And I learned this nugget that Benedict Arnold the traitor had invaded Virginia with 27 ships 600 men and Jefferson five years after the declaration was the governor of Virginia had to flee Richmond. Other British forces came in he had to flee Marcelo. So I asked myself how did Jefferson get in this position to have to flee Munna Chello his beloved home.

And that's where it started and I basically started tracing back all the events that led up to this climactic moment you know it's so interesting I was at the Naval College War Museum in Virginia Beach just about a couple months ago and I didn't know I felt it. We wanted to know about this invasion and this happened while he was governor. And what were some of the circumstances that it was after after the war. Well this was during the war you know a lot of people think of 1776 isn't it. Yeah the fireworks going off and you know revolution this was really when the war began in some ways. And here we are five years later in fact the revolution is still in a razor's edge. Jefferson is governor of Virginia he would be the first to say he wasn't prepared really to be a military leader. But the war is still raging. Benedict Arnold has just recently defected to the British the British are able to easily come up through Virginia Jefferson gets word that Arnold and know he gets word that a British some kind of fleet doesn't know if it's British doesn't have its French allies. He thinks maybe it's a foraging party so he doesn't really call out enough militias for several days this goes on and Arnold and his fleet go 100 miles up the James River to Richmond

and basically Jefferson has to flee want to Jefferson's slaves later says there wasn't a white man left in Richmond. Jefferson's across the river on horseback running around for several days and I think a lot of people think I certainly I did myself of Jefferson is sort of the quiet shy author of Declaration of Independence not a man you know out there in the field. But in fact for several days unassisted by any other military official he's out there running around saying put papers here put arms there and very significantly I think he's also taking his family his wife and young children twice up the James River to just ahead of the advancing British forces so there's an inherent drama here that's going on. And later on that he had a legislature fully original together go to Charlottesville by the Blueridge and Jefferson had believed very strongly that Charlottesville be far too remote for the British ever to come that far in fact he'd advocated having a prisoner of war camp there a couple years earlier. But in fact they do easily penetrate and they do get all the way to Monticello to Michael Kranish from the Boston Globe whose new book is flight from Monticello Thomas Jefferson or will he

Thomas Jefferson take a lot of heat in years after that for. Putting his personal safety the safety of his family is you right above. Maybe the citizens he fought back that he always accused a lot of people later on accused him for example to run for president of being a coward. I do not conclude that he was a coward. What I do say is that he was certainly ineffectual that he waited too long to call up the Militia and I think he would agree that there were problems. One of things I do is I use a lot of journals and diaries and ship logs that have not been used in other histories to tell as a narrative thread even if you have no interest in the Revolutionary War. I tried to write it as a dramatic narrative on its own two feet and then add in all of the best scholarly work that I could but to make it something that anybody who's interested in history would want to read. And in fact he when he fled Monticello he had just decided to vacate the governorship he did not take a third term and some people thought he might do. And at the one of the darkest hours for Virginia the state had no leader a lot of people did not realize that and other legislators who had fled over the Blueridge launched an investigation into

Jefferson's conduct it's just a little remembered part of history. But they basically in effect censured him and they say they sent him a letter to answer a lot of questions about how he could have left the state in this position. And he spent weeks at his remote plantation taken flight to to compose a reply. Now as it turned out there was the victory at Georgetown some months later. So legislature was willing to let bygones be bygones but he nonetheless in December of that year stood up and basically questioned himself and answered the charges against him he thought his honor had been mooted. But it would be another 20 years until he became president. Talking to Michael Kranish from the Boston Globe's Washington bureau. He's written a new book flight from Monticello Thomas Jefferson at war how did you get so immersed in this and you got a fellowship at the International Center for Jefferson studies at Monticello. What was that like what happened there. As I think it happened yes I'm so glad you asked that question you know I really I did want to learn about this part of history that I thought was little explored and was just waiting to be told. And I did try to immerse myself in that world I was able as a fellow there to live for a month in a cottage just down the shoulder

from the cello. And you know one of the things I did if I can do a little cross-promotion here is that I listen to a I'm a fan of the podcast a GBH on performance classical performance and I happen to have a podcast over four months by Karelian Bon Porter the composers that Jefferson listened to Curly quite a bit he was a violinist he said music was the passion of my soul. So I thought I really should stop reading today's newspapers read the papers of the time I should listen to Jefferson's music walk the way that he walked. So I listened to I have to say listen I podcast probably 20 times. So walking down the hallway here to your studio and seeing the performance studio that was done it brought back some memories a little symmetry for me so I was able to I think immerse myself in that world and you shut yourself out from all other news and I made you know I say I did as a reporter I read probably three four newspapers often spend two hours a day reading the paper but I made a conscious decision you know when you go on vacation it takes several days to get away. From the everyday world and sort of slip into a new world for a little while and I thought I wanted to do that. And so I didn't read the local paper any paper other than the papers of

colonial times and I listened to all of the music of that time and I really did you know for a while as much as I could become part of that world I was living on in a cottage just down from a cellist where I really could absorb all that I could I could feel the weather when Jefferson described the storms in letters of Munna cello. And there was a storm one night I really felt that I knew exactly he was talking about. So it was a good way not just through research at the library that was there which is wonderful but also to walk in his footsteps and hear the same storms that he would have heard talking to Michael Kranish from the Boston Globe's Washington bureau His new book is flight from Monticello Thomas Jefferson where he also had an op ed in today's Boston Globe which is FSA a tale about Jefferson decided he needed to move all of these prisoners and it was it was a gamble and he thought he had it right. Well you know there are about 4000 prisoners of Saratoga British soldiers and officers and the Boston people were concerned that they were so exposed here the British were trying to free them it's a long story about why they were here. But basically Jefferson supported the idea of bringing them to a

prison camp to be built just near him on a cello he thought this would bring money into the local economy it's unlikely. I love that's what our local Congress. To me you like the idea that there would be craftsman and artisans that might come and work at Monticello and surrounding plantations. And also he liked the idea that some of these officers were accomplished violinists and in fact he invited them to his parlor they played together. He put them up in the states near his house. Now as it turned out one of the officers who entertained at Monticello. Then later was freed in a prisoner exchange swap and actually was one of those who led the invasion into Virginia talking about William Phillips. So it certainly came back to haunt him and in fact he thought Charlottesville be safe it was not safe. The British did penetrate banister told US forces dippin trade all the way to Charlottesville and then told in cents a minute we have to monitor hello and just by Minutes did Jefferson escape them. But it's still he said. You say that it was a wrong decision but wouldn't the same thing have happened if you had the people up in Boston.

Well the thing was is that this this action show that he was so convinced that Charlottesville would be a museum British he really felt that the the people around Charlottesville in the worst case there would rise up and stop the British. And it just turned out to be not so. He really did not think they would ever come to the what then was the small village of Charlottesville in the wilds near the Blue Ridge It was a very remote place he just could not imagine that that would occur. But in fact during the invasion while he was governor. After resisting it for a long time eventually said get those prisoners out of Charlottesville because he was becoming concerned in fact that the British would release them and if the British force could release a large prisoner force they would have been even more devastating for Virginia. I've been talking to Michael Kranish whose new book is flight from on a cello. Thomas Jefferson at war. Great piece of historical richness that anybody who's a fan of presidential history and especially Thomas Jefferson should dig right into. Thanks for coming Michael Kranish. Thanks very much. That's going to do it for us this afternoon and we'll be back tomorrow at noon in the meantime to knit a Greater Boston tonight we're looking at alimony

reform something we talked about here a few weeks ago and struck a chord. Now two bills that would change alimony for life are pending in the legislature. That's tonight at WGBH Channel 2 at 7 the Emily Rooney show is a production of eighty nine point seven. WGBH Boston NPR station for news and culture on the web at WGBH dot org slash Emily Rooney. The Kelly Crossley Show is coming up next she's going to be talking about Haiti and that it's now that is out of the spotlight and out of the front pages every day what is going on in the ground there. Kelly's going to be taking taking on that and some other things on her show today. That's coming up right after my show on Emily Rooney. Have a great afternoon.