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Obama backtracking on detainee rights, critics say
The newest option for detaining terrorism suspects -- an Afghan prison that serves the same purpose as the lockup in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- suggests that President Obama's policies are becoming more like those of his predecessor, George W. Bush, in the view of human rights groups and legal experts.
Obama began his presidency vowing to close Guantanamo, end CIA detention practices and transform the post-9/11 system created by Bush. But the administration gradually has backtracked, and is now revisiting some of the practices in use under Bush: military tribunals, detention without trials and overseas prisons.
Human rights activists have objected to what they see as a trend in the administration toward favoring long-term detention of terrorism suspects and military commission proceedings rather than public court trials. In the latest possible shift, administration officials said last week that they may use a prison at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan for long-term detainees captured elsewhere.