Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra feature stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write a 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: Bill on Interrogating Detainees Moves to Forefront in 'War on Terrorism' Debate, 09/25/06
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/july-dec06/terror_9-25.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What happens when the United States captures someone suspected of taking part in or plotting a terrorist attack?

2. What is the "war on terror"?

3. Think of recent movies or television programs that had to do with a law enforcement official trying to get information from a suspect. What is "interrogation"? What is "torture"?

1. Where are the most notorious suspects in the "war on terror" held?

The most notorious suspects are now held at a U.S.-run military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

2. What did the Supreme Court decide in June?

The plan was to hold military tribunals with special rules to try the men and women in custody. However in June, the Supreme Court decided that military trials for terrorism suspects are illegal under U.S. and international laws.

3. What was President Bush's main concern about any compromise law?

President Bush said his main concern was giving CIA interrogators legal protection for their actions and to prevent defendants from seeing confidential evidence during their trials.

4. What are the Geneva Conventions?

The president also sought to redefine the U.S. government's responsibility under the Geneva Conventions -- a set of international laws concerning humanitarian treatment during war.

5. What guarantees did influential Republican senators want for new rules in the "war on terror?"

Influential Republican senators said they wanted guarantees against torture, as well as assurances that defendants would receive fair trials and access to evidence used to convict them -- even if it contained confidential information.

6. Name three influential Republican senators that participated in the compromise with President Bush.

After weeks of debate, President Bush reached a compromise with members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who disagreed with his plan, including Senators John Warner, R-Va., Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and John McCain, R-Ariz., who was himself a tortured prisoner of war.

7. What program did President Bush call the "most potent tool we have in protecting America?"

Under the agreement, the CIA interrogation program that President Bush called the "most potent tool we have in protecting America and foiling terrorist attacks" would be preserved.

8. What law spells out illegal interrogation techniques?

In the proposed law, Congress would spell out interrogation techniques that are considered "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions, placing them under U.S. law -- the War Crimes Act.

9. What law would determine how evidence could be obtained?

But any new evidence allowed in terrorism trials would have to be obtained without "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," as outlined by 2005's Detainee Treatment Act, spearheaded by McCain.

10. How would secret evidence be presented in terrorism trials?

Secret evidence also would have to be presented to defendants as part of a fair trial -- something the Bush administration did not want -- though many parts would remain confidential, including the identities of military agents who obtained the evidence and the methods by which the evidence was obtained.

Discussion Activity (more research might be needed):

1. Do you agree or disagree with this statement: "It's better to be safe than sorry when it comes to fighting terrorism." Why or why not?

2. If you were part of the terror legislation negotiations, which side would you take on the following issues? Why?

• Guarantees against torture (Republican Senators)
• Assurances defendants could view evidence used to convict them (Republican Senators)
• Limits to interrogation techniques as added to U.S. law (Republican Senators)
• Protection for CIA agents from prosecution for previous interrogation of suspects (President Bush)
• Redefinition of the U.S. government's responsibility under the Geneva Conventions (President Bush)
• Allowing CIA interrogators to do whatever they think is necessary to stop a terrorist attack (President Bush)

3. Do you think information obtained by coercion can or should be used in a trial? How would you determine if the information is credible? Do you think allowing information obtained by interrogation to be used in courts increases the chance that interrogators will use improper methods?

4. Why are senators concerned about the use of torture in interrogations of terrorism suspects? How does politics play into this debate?

Write a 300-500 word essay on any of these topics providing clear examples. Send your completed editorial to NewsHour Extra (extra@newshour.org). Exceptional essays might be published on our Web site.