President Obama on Thursday defended his decision to close the Guantanamo Bay prison facility, a day after the Senate denied his request for $80 million to close the prison. The House last week expressed similar reluctance.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney also spoke Thursday, defending the Bush-Cheney administration's handling of the threat of terrorism.

The following Duke University faculty members are available to comment on the implications of these views:

David Schanzer, visiting professor of public policy at Duke and director of the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security, says both men present contrasting visions for how to deal with the threat of terrorism.

"The Bush-Cheney administration chose to address these issues in secret based on a conception of presidential power that is at odds with American history and law," Schanzer says. "Policy and legal opinions were developed by a small group of like-minded individuals. Dissenters within the administration, such as many military lawyers, were excluded from deliberations and their views discarded. The administration convinced itself that laws enacted by the Congress could be ignored.

"The Obama administration is attempting to deal with these issues in a transparent manner, with open debate in the Congress, the media and among the American people. This is the way we address our most difficult policy challenges in a democracy.

"Once we get past the issue of how to deal with the remaining Guantanamo detainees, we will need to develop a comprehensive system, consistent with international and domestic law, for detaining, interrogating and prosecuting terrorists."

Madeline Morris is a professor at Duke Law School who served as chief counsel to the Office of the Chief Defense Counsel for Military Commissions 2006-2008, and is author of the forthcoming book, "Terror and Integrity: Preventive Detention in the Age of Jihad" (Oxford University Press, 2009). She says the president is correct in his call for legislation establishing a lawful and principled system for the detention of those who pose a risk of catastrophic harm to the United States, but who cannot be prosecuted. Neither the criminal law nor existing law of war provides the specific provisions necessary, Morris says.

"Criminal justice is appropriate for most terrorism, which threatens harm short of the catastrophic. It is not, however, the appropriate mechanism for preventing the most serious forms of terrorism, which may include devastating nuclear, biological or chemical attack.

"For the limited range of counterterrorism cases where preventive detention is warranted, Congress needs to pass legislation delineating a detention mechanism that is constitutionally sound, worthy of habeas corpus review, in compliance with the law of war, and consistent with the international obligations of the U.S.

"The legal framework must be comprised not of ad hoc rules for special cases but, rather, of provisions that structure a lasting framework, applicable equally to the detainees currently held at GTMO as to other instances of counterterrorism detention elsewhere or in the future."