Obama issues new guidelines for indefinite detention and torture
President Obama issued a policy directive on Tuesday that was quickly portrayed as a resolve to his right to detain US citizens without trial. In reality, the plan is a carefully crafted PR move that doesn’t strip his absolute power over Americans. - Under the directive, the requirement to go straight to military jail is waived if doing so will impede counterterrorism cooperation with other nations, interfere with US detainees held abroad, jeopardize the security of the captive’s cooperation and a handful of other categories. Even under this change, however, the final decision is still up to the president to make. Simply put, the White House is asking for a little leeway in how it goes about handling detainees before putting them on the boat to Guantanamo Bay.