Another compromise? Adios due process..

When the congress critters passed the military spending bill Wednesday, they had to know that it included the following provision: None of the Gitmo detainee's can be tried in US Courts. From Jurist:

The US Senate and the House of Representatives on Wednesday gave final approval to a defense spending bill that includes a provision preventing Guantanamo Bay  detainees from being transferred to the US for trial. The legislation would block Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other accused 9/11 conspirators from being tried in a US civilian court. The bill was approved by the House last week, prompting US Attorney General Eric Holder to send a letter (pdf) to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urging them not to include the provision in the spending bill. If signed into law, the ban will remain in place until September 30, the end of the current fiscal year. Also this week, reports have indicated that the Obama administration is considering implementing a periodic review process for detainees being held indefinitely at Guantanamo.

In the first civilian trial of an ex-Guantanamo detainee, a federal jury convicted Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani last month on only one of 285 counts of conspiracy, murder and attempted murder for his involvement in the 1998 bombings of US embassies  in Tanzania and Kenya. While the Obama administration viewed the conviction and 20-year minimum sentence as a victory, opponents have cited the acquittals as evidence that civilian courts are inadequate venues for trying terror suspects. Several scholars have nevertheless maintained that federal courts are capable of serving justice. Upon taking office, President Barack Obama pledged to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay by January 2010, but he has been met with strong congressional opposition to transferring detainees to US soil.

 Even Eric Holder knows that provision is bullshit on a stick. Prisoners deserve due process, instead of that fucking kangaroo court known as the military tribunals. Another good read on Gitmo is this piece at ProPublica which questions a federal court ruling and how one judge's opinion was whitewashed so as to weaken the judge's argument. From ProPublica:

Legal scholars and classification experts said the drafting of a second opinion was a deception. All previous opinions in Guantánamo habeas cases have noted when material has been blacked out or removed to protect security.

Stephen Gillers, who teaches legal ethics at New York University School of Law, said Kennedy may well have had a legitimate concern about "national security issues."

"But that concern then inspired him to participate in the creation of a parallel universe that fools everyone except a small circle of judges. We don't allow the justice system to create false impressions," Gillers said.

ProPublica obtained the original version of Kennedy's opinion when it appeared briefly in the court record and conducted a line-by-line comparison with what was published five weeks later. That comparison, highlighting information that was removed, can be found here.

The Obama administration ain't a whole lot different that Bush's when it comes to Gitmo detainees and blaming everything on National Security or those damn terrorists.

Medical personnel helped Bushies torture.

From Jurist:

Medical personnel present as part of the Bush administration's enhanced interrogations [JURIST news archive] were collecting and analyzing data in order to develop more effective interrogation procedures, according to a report [materials] released Monday by the advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) [advocacy website]. The techniques used by the interrogators, including waterboarding [JURIST news archive], sleep deprivation, and prolonged isolation, were recognized as legal if medical personnel were present and responsible for ensuring the legal threshold for "severe physical and mental pain" was not crossed in violation of the US War Crimes Act [text]. The report contends the collection of data was used not to protect the health of the person being interrogated, but rather in an experimental fashion to justify and shape future interrogation procedures. If proven, the use of humans as research subjects would be in violation of the Geneva Conventions, the Nuremburg Code [materials], as well as other national and international laws. PHR also contends that while the Bush administration's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memos [text, PDF] may provide a legal defense against claims of torture, that protection would not extend to claims of human experimentation, stating:

[T]he Bush administration's legal framework to protect CIA interrogators from violating US statutory and treaty obligations prohibiting torture effectively contravened well-established legal and ethical codes, that, had they been enforced, should have protected prisoners against human experimentation, and should have prevented the "enhanced" interrogation program from being initiated in the first place. There is no evidence that the Office of Legal Counsel ever assessed the lawfulness of the medical monitoring of torture, as it did with the use of the "enhanced" techniques themselves.

The report lists a series of recommendations, including investigations by the US Attorney General, the US Office for Human Research Protection (OHRP), and the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture [official websites]. PHR also calls on the US Congress to amend the War Crimes act to ensure its compliance with the Geneva Convention.
This report is the latest incident in a long string of medical condemnations of Guantanamo Bay [JURIST news archive] and the medical professionals working in it. Last April, the International Committee of the Red Cross [official website] released a report [text, PDF] alleging that medical professionals violated codes of medical ethics [JURIST report] by participating in and assisting in ill-treatment of Guantanamo Bay detainees. In September 2007, doctors from 16 countries wrote a letter [JURIST report] condemning the US military for its treatment of detainees, particularly the policy of force-feeding to counteract hunger strikes. A month earlier, a commentary [text] published in the Journal of the American Medical Association [journal website] asserted that force-feeding was a violation of medical ethics [JURIST report]. 

So much for that medical oath...

One small step for humankind..

A Federal Judge has ordered the release of a Russian gent being held at Gitmo for eight years. From Jurist:

A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday ordered the release of Russian Guantanamo Bay  detainee Ravil Mingazov. Judge Henry Kennedy Jr ordered the government to "take all necessary and appropriate diplomatic steps to facilitate Mingazov's release forthwith." Government lawyers are currently reviewing the 44-page ruling, which has not yet been declassified. Mingazov, a former ballet dancer, was captured in Pakistan in 2002 and turned over to US authorities. The Pentagon claimed he was captured in a raid on a suspected terrorist safe house and that he had attended a terror training camp, but Mingazov denied the claims. Mingazov is seeking release to a country other than Russia, after Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported in 2007 that seven former Guantanamo detainees suffered abuse and torture at the hands of Russian law enforcement agencies following their release from US custody in 2004.

Thursday's ruling brings to 35 the number of Guantanamo detainees who have prevailed in habeas corpus proceedings in federal court. The government has prevailed in only 13 cases. In March, the DC court denied the habeas petition of Yemeni Guantanamo Bay detainee Makhtar Yahia Naji al Warafi on its merits, allowing the US government to prolong the detention indefinitely. Earlier that month, a federal judge ordered the release of Mauritanian Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who had been accused of planning the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Slahi has been in US custody for over seven years and brought a habeas petition, claiming that he had been tortured in prison and had made confessions under duress. In late February, a DC judge ruled that the government can continue to hold indefinitely two Yemeni Guantanamo Bay detainees, even though Fahmi Salem Al-Assani and Suleiman Awadh Bin Agil Al-Nahdi had been cleared for release by the Bush administration two years ago.

It's a damn shame that it takes a judge to do the right thing...Wtf ever happened to doing whats right morally? So far 35 prisoners have been prevailed and that is a good thing ain't it?

Senate passes bill to allow Gitmo prisoners to be tried in US

The yahoo’s in the House passed their version last week. From Jurist:

The US Senate voted 79-19 Tuesday in favor of a bill permitting Guantanamo Bay detainees to be brought to the US for trial. The measure was part of a $42.7 billion spending bill for the US Department of Homeland Security.While the detainees still may not be released on US soil or housed in US jails, the bill requires the Obama administration to develop a plan for the anticipated closure date of Guantanamo Bay in January 2010. Navy Rear Admiral Tom Copeman has announced that he can clear the base of all detainees given only 10 days notice and appropriate logistical support. Meanwhile, a group of retired generals has launched a national ad campaign in support of closing the facility. Tuesday’s bill also extends the life of the E-Verify program, which permits employers to check on the immigration status of their new employees. The bill will now go to President Barack Obama for his signature.

This doesn’t mean the US can now house prisoners in the US proper..Oh hell no..the assholes in congress won’t allow that. My thought is they don’t want the scrutiny that would come with incarcerating them in US prisons.

Obama administration denies UN rights groups access to Gitmo

I would not of believed this if someone had told me about it. I had to read it with my own two eyes. From Jurist:

The US government has turned down requests from two separate UN investigators to visit the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, the Washington Post reported Thursday. UN special rapporteur on torture Manfred Nowak and UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism Martin Scheinin had each requested access to the facility as well as detailed information about the detention center and detainees. Nowak also requested interviews with several high-value detainees, but the requests were denied. US officials have said they are willing to cooperate with UN investigators but are unable to share secret intelligence information. While UN officials concede that the Obama administration is no longer engaging in many of the controversial practices of the Bush administration, Scheinin indicated that he is concerned that other countries are still citing US policies to justify abusive practices. Also Thursday, US Vice President Joe Biden said that Guantanamo will close by January.

Kinda makes me sick..how about you m'dear reader? What do they have to hide? Evidently quite a bit. Same shit just a different administration.

ps..out of town so please bear with me with regard to posting..I have no access to a computer except at night..very late at night.

Gitmo lawyer reassigned after filing complaint

The assholes running the kangaroo court at Guantanamo are still screwing around with the truth, inspite of having a new Commander in Chief. From Jurist:

The US Navy on Friday reassigned Lieutenant Commander William Kuebler, a military lawyer who had been in charge of defending Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr, after Kuebler filed a formal complaint against a military official overseeing the case. Kuebler had worked on the case for two years before he was fired after alleging that the military's chief Guantanamo defense lawyer, Colonel Peter Masciola, had a conflict of interest in overseeing the case. Kuebler said Masciola should be removed from the case because Masciola said Khadr should also face civil liability for the alleged killing of a US soldier, despite his role overseeing Khadr's defense. Khadr is the only Canadian citizen currently being held in Guantanamo, and Canadian officials have said they may investigate the circumstances surrounding Kuebler's removal.

Kuebler has long criticized Masciola's handling of the case, and in February said that he had prompted an investigation of the defense team's ethics based on Masciola's leadership. In January, a US intelligence official said in pre-trial testimony that Khadr admitted he threw a grenade that killed a US soldier in 2002. He has been charged with murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, providing material support to terrorists, and spying. In January, US President Barack Obama ordered Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to halt all military-commission proceedings involving Guantanamo detainees pending a review of their detentions. That month, a military judge granted the Obama administration's request for a continuance of Khadr's case until May 20.

Khadr was 15 years old when he was tossed in Gitmo and the key thrown away. He is now in his 6th-fucking-year of being held at Guantanamo. Not only was this kid renditioned..he was also tortured. He has spent a quarter of his life behind bars in Guantanamo.

What kind of people torture children? What do they tell themselves so they can look in the mirror each morning?

Federal Judge grants habeas petition to Gitmo prisoner.

This looks like a good omen to me. From Jurist:

A judge for the US District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday granted a habeas corpus petition filed by Yemeni Guantanamo Bay detainee Yasin Muhammed Basardh, ordering his release from the prison. His detention came under exclusive review of the court after a panel for the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit [official website] suspended its consideration of his case in light of the 2008 Supreme Court decision in Boumediene v. Bush, which it said gave the District Court sole jurisdiction over the matter. Justifications for Basardh's release were kept classified. The US government was ordered "to take all necessary and appropriate diplomatic steps to facilitate the release of petitioner Basardh forthwith."

The order comes after a Tuesday stay of proceedings against fellow Yemeni detainee Ayman Saeed Batarfi and follows a call by Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Sunday for the US and Yemen to agree on a repatriation plan that provides "meaningful legal process" for the nearly 100 Yemeni detainees still at Guantanamo Bay. The repatriation plan dates back to July 2008, when Yemeni officials met with a visiting US delegation to discuss the possible transfer of Yemeni detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, with the US voicing concerns that they would be freed upon their return. The stay of proceedings against Batarfi follows a January executive order from US President Barack Obama directing the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility within one year and a review and disposition of all individuals held at the facility.

Lets here it for the little guy. Because if you think about it...this is who we are: fair and equitable or nightmarish dictatorial bags of batshit that torture and run kangaroo courts.

Oh...And today, m'dear reader, is the big dog and pony show in Congress on the Obama Budget. It should be a real comedy of errors and just fine slapstick comedy period.. if recent history shows us anything.

Obama signs executive order to close Gitmo, end torture.

Oh Happy Day! He just finished signing the executive order to close Gitmo within one year of today. He also signed an E.O that disallows torture of prisoners. From MSNBC:

Moving quickly to reverse his predecessor's policies on the treatment of terror suspects, President Barack Obama on Thursday signed an executive order to shut down the Guantanamo Bay prison within a year.

He also signed an executive order to require that all U.S. interrogations of terror suspects must now conform to the U.S. Army Field Manual, a move meant to restrict what the CIA can do. The presdient created an interagency task force to advise him on detainee policy.

He is starting off on the right foot...or is that the left foot? ;)

120-day Hold put on Gitmo trials.

AP WaPo and Reuters are reporting that a 120 day hold has been placed on any military tribunal trials at Gitmo...by Presidential Order. From Reuters:

Hours after taking office on Tuesday, U.S. President Barack Obama ordered military prosecutors in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunals to ask for a 120-day halt in all pending cases.

Military judges were expected to rule on the request on Wednesday at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an official involved in the trials said on condition of anonymity.

The request would halt proceedings in 21 pending cases, including the death penalty case against five Guantanamo prisoners accused of plotting the September 11 hijacked plane attacks in 2001.

Prosecutors said in their written request the halt was "in the interests of justice."

This is a great day folks. ;)

Gitmo detainees leaving..few at a time.

This is a day of hope and change....for lots of people. Especially Haji Bismullah:

For nearly six years, Haji Bismullah, an Afghan detainee at Guantánamo Bay, has insisted that he was no terrorist, but had actually fought the Taliban and had later been part of the pro-American Afghan government.

Over the weekend, the Bush administration flew him home after a military panel concluded that he “should no longer be deemed an enemy combatant.”

Asked about the panel’s decision, which was not publicly announced and seemed to acknowledge a mistake of grand proportions, a Pentagon spokeswoman said, “Mr. Bismullah was lawfully detained as an enemy combatant based on the information that was available at the time.”

Lawyers for Mr. Bismullah, 29, presented sworn statements from officials of the American-supported Afghanistan government of Hamid Karzai that indicated Mr. Bismullah had been named as a terrorist by collaborators of the Taliban who wanted to take over his position as a provincial official. In fact, after Mr. Bismullah was shipped to Guantánamo, a local official said in a sworn statement, one of his accusers stole his car and drove it for two years.~NYT.

Doesn't that make your blood boil? Don't you want to take a baseball bat to someone's head who calls all the men held at Gitmo terrorists, scum and vermin? Another set of ruined lives gets a new start:

The US Department of Defense on Saturday announced it had transferred six detainees out of Guantanamo Bay. The detainees, four of whom were sent to Iraq, one to Algeria, and one to Afghanistan, were found to be eligible for transfer after what DOD called "a comprehensive series of review processes." ~Jurist.

And George W. Bush has less than 24 hours left in the White House. Too bad he isn't being transferred to Gitmo.

Martin Luther King had it right. Judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

But you can not even count on be judged correctly in Bush's War's..especially when all the checks and balances we have relied on for hundreds of years have been removed by idiots who think they know it all.

Tags: Haji Bismullah

Where will they go?? How about home?

I am talking about Gitmo, and the 'prisoners' that are still held there. From Jurist:

A spokesman for Australian Prime Minister Kevin Ruddsaid Saturday that Australia would be willing to consider acceptance of Guantanamo Bay detainees on a case-by-case basis, according to a report in The Australian. Rudd's spokesman confirmed that Australia, along with other countries, has been approached by the United States concerning prisoner resettlement possibilities. Australia strongly supported US policy in the "war on terror" under the leadership of former prime minister John Howard and was complicit in the Guantanamo detention of Australian national David Hicks, who was finally transferred to Australian custody in 2007. While no final decision on the closure of the detention camp has been reached, US President-elect Barack Obama remains committed to closing the facility.

The prospect of closing Guantanamo Bay has raised concerns about where to relocate the released prisoners. US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently ordered the Pentagon to draft a proposal for closing the facility in anticipation of a possible presidential order. Germany and Portugal have both stated a willingness to accept Guantanamo detainees in support of the facility's closure and have urged other countries to do so as well. The Netherlands, on the other hand, has said it will not accept detainees for resettlement and Spain has expressed strong reservations. The United Kingdom has said it will consider transfers on a case-by-case basis. French officials Friday suggested a unified European Union stance on the issue but France has not explicitly expressed a willingness to accept detainees itself. France holds the European Union presidency through December 31.

What a fucked up mess, how many were tortured, how many are innocent..and yet...these people have never been convicted of doing shit. We paid people to rat them out, we held many of them for years before letting them go home....it makes me scream.

Gates tells the Pentagon to start planning the closing of Gitmo

From Jurist:

US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has ordered the Pentagon to draft a proposal for shutting down the military prison at Guantanamo Bay in preparation for a possible order from President-elect Barack Obama, a Pentagon spokesperson said Thursday. Press Secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters that Gates wants to have a plan in place in the event Obama issues an order shortly after his inauguration to close the facility. Morrell said:

[Gates] has asked his team for a proposal on how to shut it down [and] what would be required specifically to close it and move the detainees from that facility, while at the same time ensuring that we protect the American people from some very dangerous characters.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] Executive Director Anthony Romero applauded the move [press release], saying:

The fact that Defense Secretary Gates is finally taking steps to close down Guantanamo and its unconstitutional military commissions is a welcome and encouraging sign that President-elect Obama intends to fulfill his campaign pledge. This is an important first step toward turning the page on eight years of shameful policies that allowed torture and violations of domestic and international law.

Also Thursday, the ACLU, along with Amnesty International USA, Human Rights First, and Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a letter to Obama calling on him not to create a similar detention system, should he close Guantanamo and end the military commissions system.

It can not happen soon enough for those still languishing there. Obama must end the torturing of this individuals as well as provide them with due process. Gates is stepping up to the plate on this issue and I do applaud him for that move.

“As President, I will close Guantánamo, reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions”

Those words above were spoken on August 1st, 2007 by President-elect Barack Obama. We need to hold him to those words.

To that end, the ACLU and Brave New Foundation have created the video below as well as this site. The ACLU and Brave New Foundation are collaborating on a series of videos containing direct testimony from those with firsthand knowledge of the system of injustice that thrives at Gitmo.



Close it down President Obama..shut the fucking place down and end the military commissions. Please. Restore the rule of law and end the madness that is Gitmo and the military commissions kangaroo court.

To sign a letter demanding the above, click here.

Obama planning to try Gitmo detainees in US courts?

From FindLaw:

President-elect Obama's advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.

During his campaign, Obama described Guantanamo as a "sad chapter in American history" and has said generally that the U.S. legal system is equipped to handle the detainees. But he has offered few details on what he planned to do once the facility is closed.

Under plans being put together in Obama's camp, some detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts.

A third group of detainees - the ones whose cases are most entangled in highly classified information - might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to advisers and Democrats involved in the talks. Advisers participating directly in the planning spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans aren't final.

The move would be a sharp deviation from the Bush administration, which established military tribunals to prosecute detainees at the Navy base in Cuba and strongly opposes bringing prisoners to the United States. Obama's Republican challenger, John McCain, had also pledged to close Guantanamo. But McCain opposed criminal trials, saying the Bush administration's tribunals should continue on U.S. soil.

The plan being developed by Obama's team has been championed by legal scholars from both political parties. But it is almost certain to face opposition from Republicans who oppose bringing terrorism suspects to the U.S. and from Democrats who oppose creating a new court system with fewer rights for detainees.

Laurence Tribe, a Harvard law professor and Obama legal adviser, said discussions about plans for Guantanamo had been "theoretical" before the election but would quickly become very focused because closing the prison is a top priority. Bringing the detainees to the United States will be controversial, he said, but could be accomplished.

"I think the answer is going to be, they can be as securely guarded on U.S. soil as anywhere else," Tribe said. "We can't put people in a dungeon forever without processing whether they deserve to be there."

The last line really says it all..."We can't put people in a dungeon forever without processing whether they deserve to be there." There must be a rule of law used to process these individuals, not the very people that 'captured' them also running the trials. There must be habeas corpus, there must be evidence hearings, our rule of law must be applied across the board to all these individuals...some of whom have been sitting in cells for over 5 years and have never been charged.

Update: Obama's top brass tonight, per Olbermann's show, said they do want to close Gitmo however, they have no concrete plans in place yet on how to deal with the prisoners there. The ACLU is also pressing Obama to close Gitmo on day one of his administration.

Brig General barred from Khadr trial.

Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann is one pissed off mutha today…which makes me happy. From Jurist:

The military judge presiding over the military commission trial of Guantanamo detainee Omar Khadr on Wednesday barred US Air Force Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann [official profile] from acting as a legal advisor to the commission in Khadr’s trial. In addition to his position as legal advisor to the Department of Defense authority in charge of the commissions, Hartmann is also the supervisor of the Office of Military Commissions-Prosecution (OMC-P). The ruling[PDF] by Colonel Patrick Parrish, the judge in Khadr’s commission trial, grants a motion by Khadr’s defense lawyers to exclude Hartmann from the commission because his “extremely active approach” to his role as supervisor of the OMC-P “raises an issue about his ability to remain neutral and impartial during his post trial duties” as legal advisor to the Convening Authority. Parrish’s ruling also denied a motion brought by Khadr’s defense lawyers to dismiss the charges in the case. The Miami Herald has more. The Canadian Press has additional coverage.

Hartmann has previously been accused of bias towards prosecutors. At a Wednesday hearing, US Army Gen. Gregory Zanetti, deputy commander at Guantanamo Bay, testified [JURIST report] that Hartmann routinely bullied his counterparts and was inappropriately aggressive in seeking indictments against detainees. In May, lawyers for detainee Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] unsuccessfully moved to have charges against their client dropped because of similar allegations against Hartmann. Earlier that month, Hartman wasdisqualified from participating in the military commission trial of detainee Salim Ahmed Hamdan, but he has refused to resign from his post.

Red Cross says US committed War Crimes.

An International Red Cross report states that America has truly stepped in it..the universal 'we' have committed war crimes. A book coming out lays all the horror at our feet. From the NYT writeup:

Red Cross investigators concluded last year in a secret report that the Central Intelligence Agency’s interrogation methods for high-level Qaeda prisoners constituted torture and could make the Bush administration officials who approved them guilty of war crimes, according to a new book on counterterrorism efforts since 2001.

The book says that the International Committee of the Red Cross declared in the report, given to the C.I.A. last year, that the methods used on Abu Zubaydah, the first major Qaeda figure the United States captured, were “categorically” torture, which is illegal under both American and international law.

Jonathan Turley says it very plainly. Watch the video if you missed him on Countdown. Just because John Yoo told Bush he could torture doesn't make it legal under International Law. Again from the NYT writeup:

Citing unnamed “sources familiar with the report,” Ms. Mayer wrote that the Red Cross document “warned that the abuse constituted war crimes, placing the highest officials in the U.S. government in jeopardy of being prosecuted.” Red Cross representatives were not permitted access to the secret prisons where the C.I.A. conducted interrogations, but were permitted to interview Abu Zubaydah and other high-level detainees in late 2006, after they were moved to the military detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The book says the C.I.A. shared the report, which Ms. Mayer first described last year in less detail in The New Yorker, with President Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Amazing..so disgustingly amazing. Will BushCo get away with it? Probably..but I wouldn't want to be caught outside the US borders after he leaves office, if I were him. We have been saying for years that Bush and his underlings should be tried for War Crimes and we didn't even have access to the same information the International Red Cross did.

Feds blocking payments to Gitmo lawyers..

This is such bullshittery I can not even begin to deal with it. From the TPM writeup:

The U.S. government is blocking the American Civil Liberties Union from paying attorneys representing suspected terrorists held here, insisting that the ACLU must first receive a license from the U.S. Treasury Department before making the payments.

ACLU director Anthony Romero on Tuesday accused the Bush administration of "obstruction of justice" by delaying approval of the license, which the government argues is required under U.S. law because the beneficiaries of the lawyers' services are foreign terrorists.

"Now the government is stonewalling again by not allowing Americans' private dollars to be paid to American lawyers to defend civil liberties,'' Romero said

.

I can not believe we, the universal we, have stooped so fucking low. Can you? Sweet Jesus in a speedo..this is SO disgusting, I can not spit words for it right now. Sick bastards are running the country.

"the worst of the worst." my Ass..

Bagram, the prison most folks don't know about..and Gitmo, the one everyone knows about, have one disgusting thing in common:

Most of the men being held in these illegal prisons are not terrorists. I know, big friggin surprise, but there it is. From Jurist:

McClatchy reporters found that many of the 66 former terror detainees interviewed were ordinary civilians or petty criminals; only 34 had ties to militant groups or activities and of those only seven had connections to al Qaeda leadership. The report also alleges that many of the detainees held at both the Bagram Air Base and Guantanamo Bay prisons are civilians who were either caught up in large-scale sweeps by the Afghan and US armies or were arrested based on unreliable information obtained from relatives or neighbors.(emphasis mine)

The McClatchy report can be seen here. Warning: It will piss you off beyond words. It will piss you off for a plethora of reasons. If it doesn't piss you the fuck off you quite possibly have a mental disorder. Our Government holds the wrong people for friggin years...years! The 'real' insurgents know who is or isn't a terrorist..but our minions do not. Fuck me running..this is so fucked up beyond words. Take this guys story from the McClatchy writeup who got his brains beat in by the real terrorists whilst at Gitmo:

But Akhtiar was no terrorist. American troops had dragged him out of his Afghanistan home in 2003 and held him in Guantanamo for three years in the belief that he was an insurgent involved in rocket attacks on U.S. forces. The Islamic radicals in Guantanamo's Camp Four who hissed "infidel" and spat at Akhtiar, however, knew something his captors didn't: The U.S. government had the wrong guy.

These are the people BushCo doesn't want to have Due Process, or Habeaus Corpus. These are the people the rightwing nutjobs assume are guilty because some fuckwit says so. These are the people who will never be the same and if they live through their nightmare and make it home with their sanity intact, they can count themselves among the few that did. If you don't get righteously pissed, well mutha fucka, your not paying attention.

The McClatchy report is a must read. Sure, it will upset you to know the truth. But if you know the truth you are better off..believe me. That our government would imprison men for years and years and fucking years on the word of a friggin neighbor just blows my fucking mind.

Also, if you haven't a clue what goes on at Bagram, read my archived post about it linked in the first paragraph. A real treat that Bagram Internment Facility..fucking Disneyland.

SCOTUS rules FOR detainees at Gitmo

In a ruling that is sure to send shivers down the spine of every loyal Bushie, The Supremes ruled this morning that detainees at Guantanamo have the right to appeal to US civilian courts. From the MSNBC writeup:

The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that foreign terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay have rights under the Constitution to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts.

In its third rebuke of the Bush administration’s treatment of prisoners, the court ruled 5-4 that the government is violating the rights of prisoners being held indefinitely and without charges at the U.S. naval base in Cuba. The court’s liberal justices were in the majority.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the court, said, “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”

For once they got it right..the Constitution must survive even the attacks on it from within. Justice Kennedy, was the swing vote, I would bet my last devalued dollar on it. A key piece of the ruling after the jump.

To Continue reading, click here.

A Secret prison inside Gitmo? You don't say..

From The Guardian by way of TruthOut we get this gem:

AP Confirms Secret Camp Inside Guantanamo
By Andrew O. Selsky
The Associated Press

Wednesday 06 February 2008

Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba - Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base, separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even more closely guarded - a jailhouse so protected that its very location is top secret.

For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at Guantanamo has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7. In an interview with The Associated Press, Rear Adm. Mark Buzby also provided a few details about the maximum-security lockup.

Guantanamo commanders said Camp 7 is for key alleged al-Qaida members, who must be kept apart from other prisoners to prevent them from retaliating against long-term detainees who have talked to interrogators. They also want the location kept secret for fear of terrorist attack.

Many operations have been classified since the detention center opened in January 2002 in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. More than four years passed before the military released even the names of detainees held on this 45-square-mile base in southeast Cuba - and it did so only after the AP filed a Freedom of Information Act request.

Detainees have been held in Camp Echo and Camps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. Journalists cleared by the military have been allowed to tour some of these lockups, where 260 men are held, but aren't allowed to speak to detainees. Some lawmakers and other VIPs have passed through, and the International Red Cross has access, but doesn't divulge details of visits with prisoners.

Camp 7, where 15 "high-value detainees" are held, is so secret that its very existence was not publicly known until it was mentioned in December by attorneys for Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident who allegedly plotted to bomb gas stations in the United States. Previously, many observers believed the 15 were being held in Camps 5 or 6, which are maximum-security facilities.

BushCo sure loves secrets: secret wiretappping, secret prisons..and its so friggin wrong on every level it makes me physically ill. I am glad the Guardian blew this whistle..Read the rest at one of the links above.

Tags: Guantanamo, Camp 7, Secret Prison