When justice fails: Guantánamo, WikiLeaks, Snowden & modern society

Nancy Hollander, international criminal defense lawyer in Albuquerque, New Mexico

In the frame of the MCI Alumni & Friends lecture series, the Entrepreneurial School® recently welcomed the internationally renowned lawyer Nancy Hollander, whom The New York Times has described as “terrorist lawyer” because of her commitment to people classified as public enemies or accused of terrorism.

Nancy Hollander began her lecture with the startling claim that three percent of the entire population of the United States is in prison – more than, for example, in Europe. Even so-called whistleblowers, exposing truths or secrets about the government everyone should know about, are arrested. Hollander also mentioned her client Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who, on the basis of a suspected connection to al-Qaida, was imprisoned in Guantánamo. His book, consisting of letters addressed to her as his legal representative, was published as Guantánamo Diary only after seven years and partial censorship. According to Nancy Hollander, of all the Guantánamo inmates he was tortured the most severely. The lawyer considers the treatment of so-called whistleblowers and that of the privacy of citizens by the US government to be alarming. In her lecture, she even went so far as to claim that this state surveillance does not protect citizens but rather spies on them.

The lecture concluded with a vigorous discussion.

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