Candace on Recent Emails from the DoJ:

Although there was no reporting of this particular event, the Justice Department emailed some of the habeas counsel this past week to tell them whether or not their client(s) had been "cleared" for release or transfer pursuant to the Administrative Review Board (ARB) process. This is the first time the government has done this.

The most disgusting part of the email (well, actually there were two parts that were pretty disgusting but I guess one of those falls in the "petty" department)was that the government admitted in its email that some of the individuals have been cleared for more than two years (prior to the ARB process being set up)… Obviously if those lawyers had known that there clients had been given the "all clear" sign, they could have used that information to try to get their clients sent home or to some third country.

That brings us to the petty part: the government claimed that they were sending out the emails so that the attorneys whose clients were cleared would not have to submit materials for this years ARB procedure. Submissions for this years ARB were due no later that February 23 rd, 2007. The emails started going out long after business hours on February 22nd.

-H. Candace Gorman

A Digest:

• Today's NY Times has a strong editorial praising the Canadian Supreme Court's decision striking down a law that allowed the Canadian government to indefinately detain terrorism suspects without charge.



• Yesterday, Human Rights Watch released a report that listed dozens of individuals who have been detained by the United States but whose whereabouts are currently unknown. HRW calls on the Bush administration to "provide a full accounting" for the fate of these persons. (UPI)



• The Guardian reports that a collection of poetry written by Guantánamo inmates will be published in August by the University of Iowa Press.



• David Hick's Australian attorney's sue Prime Minister Howard's government.



• From earlier this month, a former Guantánamo guard rekindles a friendship with Moazzam Begg, ex-inmate, author and spokesman for Caged Prisoners.