Here’s a summary of what the bill does:

• It requires the President to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility within 120 days of enactment.
  
• Within 120 days of enactment, the detainees will be either sent to the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth to await trial or serve their sentences or transferred to another country that will not torture, abuse, or otherwise persecute the detainee.
  
• For each detainee being held at Guantanamo Bay, the government will have 120 days to either charge the detainee with a federal crime or transfer him to his home country or another country, provided they will not engage in torture, abuse, or persecution. The government may have an additional renewal period of 120 days to hold the detainee if it is preparing charges and has a logistical need for additional time.
  
• The bill ends the practice of indefinite detention without charge of hundreds of detainees--most who have been held more than four years, and many who have been held more than five years without charge and without even knowing the reason that they are being held.
  
• The detainees who are charged will be detained in the military prison at Fort Leavenworth while awaiting trial, during trial, and during their sentences. This is the military's prison specifically designated, designed, and built by the Defense Department to hold national security prisioners.

• The bill will provide additional funds to prosecute and defend cases brought against the detainees, and for costs incurred by the government or the region in transferring or detaining prisoners.

For every day that the U.S. continues to hold detainees at Guantanamo without charges, the U.S. loses credibility with the world and violates our long-established and cherished standards of due process and adherence to the rule of law.

Simply put, indefinite detention without criminal charges is un-American. It's time to close Guantanamo.

As of today, the bill has four co-sponsors,

• Sen Biden, Joseph R., Jr. [DE] - 6/19/2007
• Sen Dodd, Christopher J. [CT] - 6/13/2007
• Sen Kennedy, Edward M. [MA] - 6/19/2007
• Sen Whitehouse, Sheldon [RI] - 6/21/2007

If you'd like to tell your Senator to co-sponsor and pass Sen. Harkin's bill, you can do it here.