Pre-trial hearings start today in Guantanamo in the case against the alleged mastermind of the September 11, terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheik Mohammed. Miami Herald reporter Carol Rosenberg has been following the hearings at the war crimes court at Camp Justice in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Miami Herald correspondent Carol Rosenberg explains why Guantanamo is missing this campaign season, and what Americans still need to know about the detention facility. 

Family members of those killed in the September 11 terrorist attacks will get the opportunity to watch the arraignment of five men accused of training and funding the hijackers — including alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed — at the Fort Hamilton army base in Brooklyn.

One of the most popular books in the prison library at Guantanamo is The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, by  Stephen R. Covey. Harper's magazine columnist Thomas Frank joins us to look at why a book designed for business executives might also be an effective tool for the de-radicalization of prisoners, at least in the minds of U.S. officials. Tom Franks writer the magazine's Easy Chair column.

The New York Times obtained a trove of more than 700 classified documents holding new information about the prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay. The documents show that most of the 172 prisoners who remain locked up at Guantanamo are “high risk” and pose a threat to our national security if released without proper rehabilitation. But more alarmingly, the documents reveal that nearly 200 of the 600 detainees already released were also rated high risk. Also, surprisingly, one of the prisoners who was released is now fighting with the rebels in Libya. Scott Shane, reporter for The New York Times helps analyze the documents.

On today’s Backstory segment we spoke with The Miami Herald's Carol Rosenberg and Emily Berman from the Brennan Center for Justice about the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which just turned 9 years old. Here are a two things we learned about the facility and the legal concepts that sustain it.

More than two years after President Obama pledged in an executive order to close the detention facility at Guantanamo bay, the prison remains open. On Monday the President also reversed course and will allow military tribunals of detainees there to resume. We’ll speak with Carol Rosenberg, a reporter for McClatchy and the Miami Herald, about the reasons why the prison was created in the first place and what the future holds for its prisoners. We’ll also be joined by Emily Berman, counsel in the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program.

The first Guantanamo detainee to have a U.S. civilian trial was sentenced to life in prison by a judge in federal court in Manhattan Tuesday.

A federal judge in Manhattan rejected the request to dismiss the sole conviction against first Guantanamo detainee to be tried in civilian court.

Yesterday the first Guantánamo detainee to be tried in a federal civilian court was acquitted of all but one of the charges against him. In total Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani faced nearly 300 charges of conspiracy and murder in the 1998 terrorist bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Josh Gerstein, courts and transparency reporter for Politico.com, and Benjamin Weiser, Federal courthouse reporter at The New York Times, talk about yesterday's delay in the trial of Ahmed Ghailani, and what it might mean for New York and the plans to try terror cases in civilian court.

The first civilian trial for a former Guantánamo Bay detainee begins today. Tanzanian-born Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is accused of bombing embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998, killing hundreds.

WNYC Reporter Ailsa Chang is covering the trial.

The case of Canadian citizen Omar Khadr at Guantanamo Bay detention center focuses our attention on the tension between the passage of time and the apparent difficulty in a political democracy to reconcile issues of security and justice. We, in America, can debate endlessly the potential danger of detainees being allowed to return home or being a threat to the U.S. in future terrorist attacks. We can choose continually to defer to the idea of caution by keeping suspects in prison while we work out the rules for their adjudication. What we cannot do, however, is be certain that our intentions are, by definition, benign or that the only outcome of these cases is some verdict: guilty or not-guilty.

Former Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib is starring in a new play about his three years in U.S. custody. The BBC’s Phil Mercer spoke to the cast at rehearsals and tells us about the play.

The President had initially pledged to close Guantánamo Bay within a year of taking office, but the challenge of how to move the detainees and what to do with them once they've moved is becoming an increasingly complicated problem. We talk with Vijay Padmanabhan, a visiting professor at Cardozo School of Law, about how best to make progress on closing the detention center. Dafna Linzer, a senior reporter for ProPublica, is following the President's efforts to close Guantánamo and she joins us with the latest news.

We look ahead to the coming week with Chris Hayes, Washington editor for The Nation, and Jill McGivering, BBC's Asia editor.  On the agenda: this morning's Senate deal on health care reform; where U.S. and Pakistani relations are headed; when Guantánamo Bay might close; the end results of climate meetings in Copenhagen; and the president's coming vacation in his home state, Hawai'i.

Terrorism suspects held in Guantánamo Bay may soon be on their way to a prison in rural northwestern Illinois, according to an Obama adminstration plan announced Tuesday. Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn has spoken in favor of the plan, which he says will bring as many as 3,000 jobs to Thomson, Illinois, and the surrounding area. We speak with Thomson resident Vicky Trager, who is a member of the village board of trustees. We also speak with Sue Stephens, news director at WNIJ, Northern Illinois Public Radio.

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• Washington Takeout: Todd Zwillich on the announcement from the White House that they'll move some of the detainees from Guantánamo Bay to a maximum-security prison in the "sleepy" town of Thomson, Illinois.
• Sports Takeout: Ibrahim Abdul-Matin on Hideki Matsui's move to the Angels and other MLB trades.
• Listeners' Takeout: We hear from our listeners on their experience with freelance jobs.