Professor Barbara Olshansky is interviewed by Christine Lagorio of the Village Voice about her work involving Guantanamo and its prisoners.
I've watched a visit to Guantánamo change even the most staunchly conservative person to, well, somewhere even to the left of me. Maybe that's tipping off the edge of the earth. But over the span of a past few years, I've really watched it change people. I'd say 30 or so have gone down there, but that's out of about 70 law firms and more than 400 lawyers involved. It's an amazing powerhouse group.
Asked about why she chose "this professional, and life, path," she says:
This sounds cheesy, but I saw the movie To Kill a Mockingbird. I wanted to be Atticus Finch and see that people are treated justly. But I never thought I could tell a bunch of lawyers to, say, simultaneously file for injunctions to stop transportation of detainees abroad for questioning and torture, and that they would, and we'd win a dozen cases at once. It's great to be able to poke Uncle Sam in the eye once in a while. What a horrifying time we live in.
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