Though Obama's plans are not finalized, he has pledged to close Guantanamo (as a "top priority") and wishes to transfer detainees to the US to face criminal trials and get away from the military commissions process in Guantanamo. HOWEVER, there is talk amongst his advisers about possibly creating a new court system for detainees whose cases involve highly classified information, which has drawn sharp criticism from detainee lawyers, who believe that the creation of a new system is not the answer and could lead into territory as dangerous as the current "new creation" of the military commissions courts. Plans are still in-process, however, so we'll see what evolves from this!

Obama plans Guantanamo closure, US terror trials
By MATT APUZZO and LARA JAKES JORDAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — President-elect Obama's advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.

During his campaign, Obama described Guantanamo as a "sad chapter in American history" and has said generally that the U.S. legal system is equipped to handle the detainees. But he has offered few details on what he planned to do once the facility is closed.

Under plans being put together in Obama's camp, some detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts.

A third group of detainees — the ones whose cases are most entangled in highly classified information — might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to advisers and Democrats involved in the talks. Advisers participating directly in the planning spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans aren't final.

The move would be a sharp deviation from the Bush administration, which established military tribunals to prosecute detainees at the Navy base in Cuba and strongly opposes bringing prisoners to the United States. Obama's Republican challenger, John McCain, had also pledged to close Guantanamo. But McCain opposed criminal trials, saying the Bush administration's tribunals should continue on U.S. soil.

The plan being developed by Obama's team has been championed by legal scholars from both political parties. But it is almost certain to face opposition from Republicans who oppose bringing terrorism suspects to the U.S. and from Democrats who oppose creating a new court system with fewer rights for detainees.

The plan drew criticism from some detainee lawyers shortly after it surfaced Monday.

"I think that creating a new alternative court system in response to the abject failure of Guantanamo would be a profound mistake," said Jonathan Hafetz, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who represents detainees. "We do not need a new court system. The last eight years are a testament to the problems of trying to create new systems."

First, a great, very clearly outlined BBC analysis of the fundamental legal and practical issues Obama will face in attempting to close Gitmo:

BBC: Obama wrestles with Guantanamo problem

...and Amnesty's 100 Days Petition/Human Rights Challenge to President-Elect Obama: read and sign the petition here.

Judge Orders Five Detainees Freed From Guantánamo
William Glaberson, The New York Times:

In the first hearing on the government’s justification for holding detainees at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, a federal judge ruled Thursday that five Algerian men were held unlawfully for nearly seven years and ordered their release.

By reviewing government documents, court records and media reports, The Times was able to compile an approximate list of detainees currently at Guantánamo.

The judge, Richard J. Leon of Federal District Court in Washington, also ruled that a sixth Algerian man was being lawfully detained because he had provided support to the terrorist group Al Qaeda.

The case was an important test of the Bush administration’s detention policies, which critics have long argued swept up innocent men and low-level foot soldiers along with high-level and hardened terrorists.

The six men are among a group of Guantánamo inmates who won a Supreme Court ruling that the detainees have constitutional rights and can seek release in federal court. The 5-4 decision said a 2006 law unconstitutionally stripped the prisoners of their right to contest their imprisonment in habeas corpus lawsuits.

The hearings for the Algerian men, in which all of the evidence was heard in proceedings that were closed to the public, were the first in which the Justice Department presented its full justification for holding specific detainees since the Supreme Court ruling in June.

Judge Leon, in a ruling from the bench, said that the information gathered on the men had been sufficient to hold them for intelligence purposes, but was not strong enough in court.

“To rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with this court’s obligation,” he said. He directed that the five men be released “forthwith” and urged the government not to appeal.

From Robert F. Worth at the New York Times:

BEIRUT, Lebanon — The United States military has decided to release a former driver for Osama bin Laden whose trial became a test case for the Bush administration’s system of military commissions for accused terrorists, Yemeni officials said.

The driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who was captured in Afghanistan in 2001 and convicted and sentenced in August, will be released from the Guantánamo Bay detention center in the coming days and transferred to his native Yemen, where he will serve the remaining month of his sentence, according to the Yemeni officials.

Once considered a dangerous terrorist by the Bush administration, Mr. Hamdan was convicted only on lesser charges in August and given what amounted to a four-month sentence by a military jury. At that time, a military judge gave Mr. Hamdan credit for at least the 61 months he was held after being charged, reducing his sentence to a matter of months. The verdict was a sharp setback for Pentagon officials, who had contended they could detain him indefinitely.

“The Yemeni government is very pleased by the announcement to transfer the Yemeni detainee Saleh Ahmed bin Hamdan,” said Mohammed al-Basha, a spokesman for the Yemeni Embassy in Washington. “We hope that this will be a positive first step to the transfer of the remaining detainees.”

The decision avoids what could have been a difficult issue for President-elect Barack Obama, who has said he wants to close the United States military prison in Cuba.

This is pretty impressive...from government documents, court records and media reports, the New York Times has attempted to compile an unofficial list of all the detainees that have been held or are currently being held at Guantanamo (the Pentagon refuses to disclose an official list, but the Times seems fairly confident in their researched estimate.) The list attempts to catalogue the current status of the 779 detainees who have been in Guantanamo at some point (around 250 currently remain, at least 525 have been transferred/released) and identifies all detainees by name and country of origin, date and place of capture/transfer if available, etc. It's very interesting to see the demographic distribution of those who have been detained....

The New York Times: The Guantanamo Docket