There are still 241 detainees awaiting trial or release at Guantanamo Bay. While President George W. Bush's Cabinet irrevocably tarnished our international reputation in a variety of ways, perhaps the most shocking part of his legacy is the continued acceptance of torture through the refusal to hold accountable those responsible for it.

High school history courses have taught us the infamous names of ruthless dictators such as Pinochet, Lenin, Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot, who inflicted terror and oppression on people without regard to international or domestic law. Those who chose to stand up and oppose their abuses of power disappeared and were systematically murdered or tortured.

We who claim to recognize the injustice and inhumanity of such regimes fail to recognize that we have been living under such a regime for nearly eight years. Citizens of the United States and other countries have been kidnapped and imprisoned without cause, trial or notice, to be interrogated, tortured and detained without any information about their whereabouts or condition provided to their loved ones. Some have been released without any evidence of wrongdoing, without apology or explanation, and then refused justice in the courts of the United States after the perpetrators -- the Bush administration -- asserted the "state secrets" doctrine.

These tales of abuse and tragically altered lives are seldom mentioned on the nightly news. And now the administration of President Barack Obama continues to invoke the "state secrets" doctrine to deny torture victims justice and to hide the facts about torture and warrantless wiretapping from the public.

People continue to suffer, the truth still has not been disclosed, and we the people and our elected representatives mostly remain silent. In these circumstances, silence is a dangerous thing to our democracy. Silence implies acquiescence in the wrongdoing. Until we citizens take an active role and raise our voices as one, hope of the truth and of reform will diminish.

We shall not be the agents of change so many of us imagined, but the generation and nation that stood silent and left it to one man, President Obama, to fix a system that has been corroded by corruption for decades. He cannot -- and will not -- do it alone. We all need to do our part.

By uniting our voices, we will be heard when we call for Congress and President Obama to reinstate the rule of law. High Road for Human Rights (www.highroadforhumanrights.org) advocates for seven concrete solutions to begin the process of restoring the rule of law.

One solution is to appoint a nonpartisan commission charged with investigating illegal conduct and other abuses of power by former high-ranking government officials. The commission would let the American people know the truth and make recommendations concerning reforms to prevent or deter similar misconduct in the future.

It is deeply disquieting that such an obvious solution has not been embraced by a Congress that continues to be complicit in the wrongdoing by allowing it to remain covered up. Those who embrace the rule of law and the values behind our system of checks and balances now have an opportunity to make a difference by speaking up -- initiating and taking an active role in the ongoing dialogue of democracy.

We have been awakened from our apathetic nap by the jarring reality that we allowed the prior administration to commit its crimes because we were not organized and we did not speak up. Now, we can take effective action as engaged citizens so our representatives and President Obama will have the courage to finally act.

Through citizen participation, joining our voices for a return to the rule of law, we can, together, create a better world. It is our responsibility and opportunity, as American citizens and as human beings.

Dylan Schneider holds a bachelor of arts degree in international studies and is currently the chapter coordinator in Utah for High Road for Human Rights.