Editor, OBSERVER:

An editorial in the OBSERVER, “Keep Cuba location open,” (June 10) argues for the continued operation of the U.S. Detention Center at U.S. Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The detainees are nonstate players seized by U.S. officers outside U.S. territorial bounds after Sept. 11, 2001. U.S. civil laws do not apply to military and naval installations outside U.S. territorial bounds.

I completed an undergraduate course in constitutional law at the University of Rochester. My classmates, the professor, and I debated aspects of the U.S. Constitution. This included the Bill of Rights with its specification of speedy trials and protection from seizure without due process, among other things.

Federal Judge Lewis A. Kaplan of the Southern District of New York, one of my classmates, has been called repeatedly to conduct trials with individuals transferred from the U.S. military authorities at Guantanamo Bay to civil authorities in New York (for example of news media reports, consider Weiser, B., and Moynihan, C. ”’98 embassy bomber is given life without parole.” New York Times, Jan. 25, 2011).

President Obama made remarks on the plan to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay on Feb. 23. He stated: “Keeping this facility open is contrary to our (American) values. It undermines our standing in the world. It is viewed as a stain on our broader record of upholding the highest standards of rule of law. As Americans, we pride ourselves on being a beacon to other nations, a model of the rule of law. But 15 years after 9/11 – 15 years after the worst terrorist attack in American history – we’re still having to defend the existence of a facility and a process where not a single verdict has been reached in those attacks – not a single one … .”

I support President Obama, the former professor of constitutional law, on this one.

MICHAEL C. BARRIS, Ph.D.,

Fredonia