It’s almost as if the people in charge didn’t want fair trials for the defendants, or possibly just didn’t want those men to move out of the ‘could be terrorists’ category:
The military justice system at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which has been dogged by charges of secret monitoring of proceedings and defense communications, became embroiled in a fresh controversy Thursday when it was revealed that hundreds of thousands of defense e-mails were turned over to the prosecution.
The breach prompted Col. Karen Mayberry, the chief military defense counsel, to order all attorneys for Guantanamo detainees to stop using Defense Department computer networks to transmit privileged or confidential information until the security of such communications is assured.
Army Col. James Pohl, the chief judge at Guantanamo, also ordered a two-month delay in pretrial proceedings in the military-commission case against Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is accused of organizing the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen. Defense attorneys in the trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed , the professed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and four co-defendants filed an emergency motion — via a handwritten note — seeking a similar pause in proceedings…
The inappropriate transfer of the e-mails follows other questions about government intrusion and secrecy that have undermined the legitimacy of a judicial process that has struggled to establish itself as an effective forum for the prosecution of some terrorism cases.
In February, a military lawyer acknowledged that microphones were hidden inside devices that looked like smoke detectors in rooms used for meetings between defense counsel and their clients. The military said the listening system was not used to eavesdrop on confidential meetings and had been installed before defense lawyers started to use the rooms. The government subsequently said it tore out the wiring.
That same month, Pohl learned that the soundproofed courtroom at Guantanamo was wired with a “kill switch” that allowed an unknown government entity, thought to be the CIA, to cut audio feed of the trial to the public gallery. Pohl ruled that in the future only he could turn off the audio feed to protect classified information. But defense lawyers questioned whether the audio equipment in the courtroom had been manipulated to allow the government to monitor attorney-client conversations…
It’s not any one or one hundred deliberately malicious individuals, it’s the ongoing failure of a system cobbled together in a fever of combat urgency and political dishonesty. People do their jobs, as they understand them. Military tribunals enforce military order; the CIA extracts information. These procedures tend to be orthagonal under the best of circumstances, which even Guantanamo’s fiercest defenders would probably agree these are not. I’m having trouble envisioning where the situation will improve when the acting authorities are committed to doing exactly what they’ve been doing, only with more rigor.
Redshirt
Well, of course, Obama wants this. Never mind the Senate votes against anything to do with shutting down Gitmo. It’s all Obama’s fault cuz of drones and Brooks, and CPI, and such.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@Redshirt:
What the hell are you going on about? Someone in the military leaked those emails. That person should be identified and if possible brought to book. This has nothing to do with Senate votes or any of the rest of your word salad. It has to do with what appears a deliberate intention to sabotage an already flawed process.
Roger Moore
It’s almost as if the national security state is deliberately avoiding civilian control and doing WTFTW. But that could never happen in America, so it must be my imagination.
Redshirt
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Obama’s the cause of ALL problems, don’t you know?
scav
Aaaaahhhh. The smell of ‘mercan exceptualism and the strain of being a mighty international beacon of the glories of Democracy™ Unfettered and true Capitalism(holy holy) and Rule of Law™ to the world.
Roger Moore
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
I think the point is that Obama is going to get the blame (at least from firebaggers) even though he was the one who was trying to prosecute in civilian courts where there are established procedures for protecting defendants’ rights against these kinds of abuses.
Yutsano
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: Snark detector. Needs adjusting.
And this should end every prosecution there now. It won’t, but it should. And this boil needs lanced from our body politic.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
I would like to meet one of those fierce Gitmo defenders. As a fierce Obama defender, I would like to kick that person in the balls. 3 or 400 times.
BGinCHI
I’m starting to think we’re never going to send any Wall Street CEOs to Gitmo.
Mnemosyne
@Higgs Boson’s Mate:
Yep, and I have no problem with that, because the leaker is obviously trying to bring a flawed system to the attention of people who can fix it rather than just sending out mass e-mails of classified information.
@Roger Moore:
I can kind of, almost, from an empathy perspective understand what’s going through the minds of the guys running the camp. They were told for 10 years that every one of the prisoners under their control was a dangerous, murderous terrorist who needed to be prevented from ever getting out. If it turns out that was all a lie, if it turns out that most of these guys are at best low-level jerkoffs who were stupid enough to get caught, then what the fuck did they just spend 10 years of their lives rotting in Cuba for?
Only solution is to shut it down. If it means bringing all of the prisoners here for proper trials and letting most of them go on parole, I’m okay with that.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Roger Moore: It’s not happening “in America.” That’s why this mess was set up.
Omnes Omnibus
No chance of anything approach a fair trial is possible now. Evidence that might have come from torture. No guarantee that the prosecution is not privy to attorney-client discussions. Jesus.
Redshirt
@Omnes Omnibus: Yeah, that’s the Catch-22. There’s no way we could give any of these people a fair trial anymore. If they were prosecuted in a normal quote, they’d be set free instantly.
Tough pickle, now. Thanks W!
scav
According to what little I could find at the NYT, there are issues in M directions. Hearing in Cole Attack Is Delayed Again, This Time by E-mail Security Issue
kc
Why haven’t the prosecutors been sanctioned by the bar?
Lurking Canadian
At this point does it even matter if they get a fair trial? As I understand it, even the ones who have been found innocent by the kangaroo court are still stuck there because they can’t go home, can’t go anywhere else, and aren’t allowed to set foot into the US.
The only solution may be to leave the prisoners with a plow and a bag of seed corn and withdraw American personnel then let the people of the new state of Guantanamostan and Cuba sort it out.
Roger Moore
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
If the people doing this shit aren’t taking orders from somebody in America, I’ll eat my hat. Yeah, they’ll blame some relatively low-level schmuck, but that’s about as plausible as the idea that Abu Ghraib was the fault of a bunch of enlisted personnel who were making everything up themselves.
Omnes Omnibus
@Lurking Canadian:
That is another problem. I would say that the judges should basically dismiss each case with prejudice,but we still have find somewhere for the people to go. And odds are that it will require money, which has to come from Congress.
TooManyJens
@Omnes Omnibus:
Or one hell of a Kickstarter.
eemom
@Redshirt:
fuckin A, and President Hill’s gonna fix this shit right up come 2017 — amirite, AL?
Thomas F
Friday afternoon is a perfect time to gauge the level of cognitive dissonance permeating Balloon Juice on the subject of human rights.
My favorite episode is when the courageous commentors who post here pseudonymously berate Anne Laurie for even bringing this subject up.
Omnes Omnibus
@Thomas F: Who is berating her for bring it up?
Mike G
In the Coaltion Provisional Authority we saw neocons’ dream of governance at its purest — and most corrupt, authoritarian and incompetent.
Here we are seeing the purest distillation of the neocons’ dream of a judicial system.
Fuck these people with a rusty chainsaw.
El Cid
Hey, look on the bright side: We’ve managed to look like even bigger assholes in our occupation of Cuban territory.
Mnemosyne
@Omnes Omnibus:
Apparently saying, “We need to release these poor bastards immediately” translates into “OMG WHY DO YOU HATE OBAMA?!” in Firebaggerese.
Pinkamena Panic
@Thomas F: ..Are you high?
Tonal Crow
Once again (for perhaps the tenth time today) I’m reminded of how important the ACLU is. They fight detention without charge, unfair tribunals, deprivation of counsel, execution without trial, and a host of other violations of our rights and usurpations of our power. And they do it every day, all year long, year after year, no matter who’s in office.
Do something that makes a difference. Support the ACLU today.
Tonal Crow
@TooManyJens:
This is a very good idea.
Citizen_X
@BGinCHI:
He’ll, we’re never going to send any terrorists to Gitmo, if they’re the white power/Aryan Nations/right-wing militia kind.
Tonal Crow
@Omnes Omnibus:
Also no chance of Scalia and Thomas voting to free the detainees, but perhaps there will be enough others to force the issue.
Roger Moore
@BGinCHI:
I’ll be happy if we never send anyone to Gitmo. The big question is whether we’re ever going to send any of the current detainees away from Gitmo in anything but a coffin.
RaflW
A chunk of this traces back to all those f*cking cowards is Congress who refused to let Gitmo be scaled down and eventually shut because we can’t possibly release a single one of the innocent, nor have any of these people transfered onto US soil (where the kinds of spying on defendants is still, one hopes, frowned upon). No, no, no go the Congressional chest thumping scaredy cats, they’d be too much of a danger to the citizens of the most powerful nation on earth.
Keith G
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yup
Now I know this will never happen, but in the face of a recalcitrant Congress I wish this or (god forbid)the next president would just pull out and swing their C-I-C dick and close down the prison camp at Guantanamo by a date certain.
Tell Congress that in 4 mos the gates will be unlocked to avoid further human rights violations. Either fund a reasonable process or let them disappear into the night.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus:
Put simply, we have to let these individuals go. Just release them, either into the states with a visa or fly them to wherever they want to go/are accepted.
If these guys are all dumped at once into any major metro city my guess is they’d be “Westernized” pretty fucking fast.
burnspbesq
Fucking ridiculous. Everyone involved should be court-martialed, and any lawyers involved should be disbarred.
Also what Omnes said. Dismiss all the charges against all the detainees.
lojasmo
Fucking fuck. It’s a wonder Obama didn’t proclaim Gitmo to be extant and funded forever, and under the care of PPACA to boot, and supplied by Monsanto food in perpetuity.
Let these poor fuckers go.
AxelFoley
Now we know why Obama sent Jay-Z and Beyonce´ to Cuba.