The problem, he asserted, was that the hundreds who remain imprisoned there include some who "may be very dangerous who have not been put on trial or have not gone through some adjudication. And some of the evidence against them may be tainted even though it's true."

The solution to this problem, he indicated, involves "creating a process." He added, "Our legal teams are working in consultation with our national security apparatus as we speak to help design exactly what we need to do."

According to most accounts, what the president-elect is talking about is creating some kind of new "national security court" in which "tainted evidence--including confessions extracted through torture--may be used either to try and convict defendants or to continue detaining them without trial, and in which evidence and proceedings can be kept secret.

Such remedies are being advocated as an alternative to swiftly closing down a facility that is seen all over the world as the hallmark of state criminality and either releasing or bringing to trial before a normal court of law those held there. What Obama is suggesting would enshrine in US law the torture regime developed under the Bush administration and create a pseudo-legal framework for further expanding the police-state apparatus of the US government.