Talk:Ghost detainee

Is ghost detainee an "official" term?

The article asserts that the term "ghost detainee" was an official term. Earlier today an anonymous user, with no previous posting history, made a number of unsubstantiated edits that I believe show a biased point of view. Among their changes was the unsubstantiated assertion that the term was invented by "critics". The guards were using this term long before critics had ever heard that prisoners were being kept sequestered, in clear-cut violations of the Geneva Conventions. I changed it back to the original wording. -- Geo Swan 16:27, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The introductory material to this article has gone through a lot of revisions. I think some parts of the wording from an earlier revision is more neutral than what we currently have, which does not substantiate the assertion that it is an official term. I am not sure what "official" means, given that this practice was secret. If the term was used on a secret memo, does that make it "official"? Being used by enlisted GIs and their officers, does that make it official? Does the inclusion of the term in the Taguba Report make it "official"? IMO, not if he was only repeating the enlisted GI slang. -- Geo Swan 18:20, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I couldn't find any evidence that it is an official term of the Bush administration or that it was ever used by anyone in the Bush administration. The provided citation actually says it was used by a particular unit of the Army at Abu Ghraib prison, so I've changed the lead sentence to that effect. --Lee Hunter 15:34, 29 September 2006 (UTC)

Timeline of statements on ghost prisoners

Timeline of statements on ghost prisoners

May 4 2004	Secret World of U.S. Interrogation: Long History of Tactics in Overseas Prisons Is Coming to Light
June 4 2004	Tenet Resignation (transcript)
June 16 2004	Pentagon: Iraqi held secretly at CIA request
June 17 2004	Detainee Reportedly Was Lost in System: CIA Criticized for Hiding Some Prisoners
June 18 2004	Rumsfeld Authorized Secret Detention of Prisoner
June 18 2004	Rumsfeld ordered secret detention of Iraqi suspect
June 21 2004	Torture Policy (cont'd) (editorial)
June 24 2004	U.S. Struggled Over How Far to Push Tactics: Documents Show Back-and-Forth on Interrogation Policy
October 24 2004	Memo Lets CIA Take Detainees Out of Iraq: Practice Is Called Serious Breach of Geneva Conventions
August 25 2004	Analysis: Schlesinger Report (transcript)
October 16 2005	A Future Investigation (editorial)

Bush administration policy? Or US Government policy?

The US Government has three branches. They have overlapping powers and responsibilities. They are supposed to provide a system of checks and balances on one another.

• The judicial branch has been considering, and has already over-ruled some aspects of the Bush administration's detainee policy.
• The legislative branch has also weighed in, with, for example, the Detainee Treatment Act.
• When the other two branches are amending and over-ruling the executive branch a policy should not be described as a "US Government policy".

I have seen many instances where references to the "Bush administration" were changed to references to the "US Government". Sometimes the contributors put edit summaries like, "correcting blatant POV". But, I would argue, attributing the policy to the US government is what appears more POV. It gives the appearance of trying to present the policy as without controversy, when it is highly controversial. I am sure everyone who makes this "correction" does so in good faith. But I find it frustrating to keep on being called to explain how the US government works when I am not an American myself. -- Geo Swan 10:15, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

I agree that such policies should correctly be attributed to the Bush administration, where they originated. This is accurate, not POV. When Congress makes laws that are signed by the president, they can be referred to as laws. But much of Bush's war on terror was created by executive fiat and legal opinions of the Executive Branch, and are correctly attributed there.Parkwells (talk) 19:09, 21 January 2013 (UTC)

Magna Carta

I deleted the sentence on the Magna Carta, as it seems to have no bearing to the topic on hand. The term seems to relate largely to U.S. foreign policy, and the Magna Carta was not a treaty or any type of international agreement - it was British law. The Magna Carta has as little bearing on this article as the U.S. Constitution would on an article about the war in the Falklands. XINOPH | TALK 19:07, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I am not going to restore this paragraph, because it should have been backed up by appripritat verifiable, authoritative reference. Those references are out there. All English-speaking nations have legal systems that share elements in common with the British judicial system. The American justice system wasn't created from a blank slate. The paragaph, or one much like it, is highly relevant, once sources are supplied.

Cheers! Geo Swan 22:10, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

In that case, perhaps an additional Wiki-page is required, anent the British government's long-standing practice of "ghosting" certain prisoners within its Prison Service. This involves moving the prisoner, with no warning and generally at night, between prison establishments, in some cases without paperwork, so as to prevent their making contact with the outside world, and their families and legal representatives, or as a means of punishment, effectively placing them in unodcumented solitary confinement, since before they can be located to a normal cell in one prison they are removed to the next and placed in a reception cell. -- Jubelum (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 13:43, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Potemkin Villages?

First off, if I am not posting using the agreed upon place or style I can only say I am new to this.

The prison in Cuba, and Abu Ghraib, and Bagram were possibly Potemkin Villages used to deflect media & public attention from the black prisons. Yesterday the new USA President signed executive orders closing Guantanomo and the black prisons but I found little mention of black prisons in the media in the USA and Canada. Black prisons have been little mentioned over the past 5 years in the news. Has that there may have been a disinformation campaign to obscure the operation of the black prisons been discussed here?

External links modified

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External links modified

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Techniques

Having been a ghost detainee twice I know of four ways to detain persons making them essentially be a ghost detainee.

1. Detained but not registered.

2. Detained but intentionality registered under a false name (the victim is not told they're held under a false name.

3. Detained lawfully and registered under real name, and later officially realised but never really released and then held unlawfully and not registered as being detained (victim may not know he's being detained unlawfully).

4. Detained lawfully and registered under real name, and later officially realised but never really released and then secretly re-registered under a false name (victim may not know he's being detained under a false name).

[3 and 4 were done to me]

Such things are common in the country I live.

HardeeHar (talk) 18:18, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

When #4 happened to me I believe I was re-registered under different names more than once. I was originally detained under my real name, and was later moved to another room/section where unbeknownst to me I was re-registered under a false name, and my next of kin wrongly told I'd been released. I found out was held under false name as personnel would call be by the false name. I was later moved to another room/section where it was claimed I was being detained under my real name but one person would call be by the wrong name (a different false name than the previous false name I was detained under).

HardeeHar (talk) 18:28, 25 July 2020 (UTC)