From Roger Fitch and our Friends down under at Justinian

Perfidy in peacetime

ROGER FITCH ESQ • MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2013

The United States doesn't require a war for there to be "war crimes ... Stopping the "water cure" from flowing into the trial process ... European Court of Human Rights upsets the CIA's apple cart ... Roger Fitch files from Washington 

Judge Pohl: obligingly kept torture evidence secretTHE news media have concentrated this month on the Guantánamo 9/11 trial, where, in a moment of high farce, the sound and pictures under the delayed-response security systemabruptly vanished despite no one claiming responsibility. 

As soon as a defence lawyer mentioned his motion to preserve CIA "black sites" (they are crime scenes, after all), someone pulled the plug, and it wasn't the judge or official court censor. 

Whodunnit? The judge didn't know, but the prosecution did.

Could it be their mates at the CIA?

CLICK HERE TO READ THE REST.....

And if you believe this one I have a bridge for sale......

Yes, the military at Guantanamo admits it has microphones in the meeting rooms where attorneys meet with their clients- but they claim they don't listen. Really??
Oh yeah, and they realized that the microphones were not working so they fixed them....but they still were not listening....
Really??
That sure is showing a lot of self control isn't it? And of course we know our military and its friends in the CIA exercise a lot of self control.
Many of us have long suspected that our meetings were being listened to by the military despite the fact that there was a court order demanding that they not listen- especially when our clients were questioned about things that came up in our meetings after we left- but the military always denied they were listening and of course the judges did not believe that the military would lie to them.....sigh.
Carol Rosenberg has more here.

Bybee- Bush's torture drafter- rules on torture in his position of appellate judge

Well I am sure this will not surprise anyone who has a clue who Bybee is- one of the drafters of the Bush torture papers who was then promoted to be a judge on the 9th circuit court of appeals. Well anyway Judge Bybee finally got a chance to rule on torture in a case in front of him- and guess what- Bybee did not think that being "chained at the ankles and the waist, shackled to a metal bed without a mattress, and forced to lie down and lap his meals from a bowl without using his hands. He said the cell was kept hot, poorly ventilated and in constant bright light. He tried to sleep when he could but felt his mind “deteriorating,” and the conditions “did in fact torture (him) mentally.”   amounted to torture...
But just in case someone else might think it did amount to torture Bybee also held (coincidentally) that since this conduct happened back in 2002 (right around when he was writing the torture memos) no one could have known that conduct like this would be considered  unconstitutional because the law had not been clearly established way back then-that torture was unconstitutional.

I would also suggest that Bybee had a conflict of interest in even ruling on this case as his decision could be seen as an attempt to buttress his own defense in the ongoing attempts to have him removed from the bench-his defense has been "I didn't know this kind of conduct was unconstitutional."

read the decision here

THE GUANTANAMO OFFICE IS NOW CLOSED

In other news- Obama finally closed something having to do with Guantanamo- the office in charge of resettling the men...sigh.
you can skip the ad by clicking up on the right hand side- this video from Colbert hits the nail on the head-http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/423309/january-29-2013/guantanamo-bay-office-closure

THE PUPPET SHOW CONTINUES ---

This week we all were able to see first hand who controls things at the Guantanamo "commission trials." Ok, we couldn't actually see who it was but we know it is not the judge right? In case you managed to miss this story a secret hand pushed a button censoring the hearing-and the censor was not someone in the courtroom- the judge was a bit pissed off that someone was controlling things from the outside and he claims to have eliminated  the secret censor but it seems to me that if he doesn't know who the censor is it is pretty hard to eliminate it....anyway the judge should know he is not in charge -I mean where does he think he is anyway- the US?

events on the twelfth anniversary

From Andy Worthington- click here...

From the Yemen Times- click here...

From Firedoglak--click here

From Daphne Eviatar (Huffingtonpost) --click here

From Carol Rosenberger (Miami Herald) --click here

I know I am probably missing some others....

Yes folks- Guantanamo is still open!

January 9th, 2013 8:02 PM

Guantanmo Is Still Open

By Candace Gorman

Hey folks -- Guantanamo is still open. My client and 166 other men are now entering their twelfth year of being held without charge or trial and there is no end in sight for their plight.

Is someone to blame for this?

Could it be Barack that is to blame? This New Year’s Eve seems to have been a big day for Barack Obama. As he signed the latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act -- the NDAA -- keeping Guantanamo, for all intents and purposes, open for another year -- he issued a “signing statement” -- the way George Dubya Bush used to do quite often -- but in this signing statement, the president lamented about how his hands are tied in closing Guantanamo. But of course he went ahead and signed the NDAA anyway, tying his own hands (and allowing him to tie ours, or detain us, or if necessary in his opinion, presumably torture or kill us) and then he flew back to Hawaii to finish his vacation. So certainly Barack cannot be to blame, right? After all, his hands are tied!

READ THE REST ON MICHAEL MOORE'S WEBPAGE.

WE ARE SO UP THE CREEK.....

(that is US slang -write if you need an explanation....)

It seems that a (former?) FBI man has been held hostage by someone since 2007. His family did not go public in hopes that my government (his government) would help him. Alas that never happened and the family finally went public....and there is good reason why my government has not done a god damn thing- and it has nothing to do with the unfortunate Robert Levinson....it has to do with my government...
Seems the people holding poor Mr. Levinson have been using him to make a point about my country's illegal and unconscionable jail at Guantanamo and my government didn't want to deal with that embarrassment.....

"The photos, for example, portray Levinson in an orange jumpsuit like those worn by detainees at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. The family received them via email in April 2011. In each photo, he held a sign bearing a different message.

"I am here in Guantanamo," one said. "Do you know where it is?"

Another read, "This is the result of 30 years serving for USA."

I am so very sorry for  Mr. Levinson. My country is completely dysfunctional and unwilling to admit its mistakes in operating this illegal prison and now we have others mimicking the prison.....what a shock!
I can only hope his captives will let him go- recognizing that so many of us here in the US have been trying to free the men at Guantanamo and holding this unfortunate man will not help those men.
Read more about this here.

The New American Justice

Another federal judge today confirmed that we (the attorney's for men held at Guantanamo) cannot see documentation that is classified at a higher classification level than the level awarded to us even if the information could be important for our clients freedom....sigh.

The doors of the courthouse keep shutting tighter and tighter....

http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2013/01/judge-government-can-rely-on-top-secret-information-in-gitmo-case.html

another sorry anniversary

Friday starts year twelve for the 166 men still held at Guantanamo. Find a protest near you and make yourself heard. If you are in the DC area head to the white house and join the hunger strikers-let that miserable president of ours know that some in the country still do care about the rule of law.

Sorry Men.....

But the president has decided again this year that it just isn't that important to deal with those of you being held without charge or trial at our gulag at Guantanamo Bay- -
although he does profess to be unhappy with his decision .... and he shows his unhappiness by cloning GW and giving a signing statement....
what a wimp...
Speaking of wimps....now that Jeh Johnson has left the post of general counsel for the military he is announcing that the war with al-Qaeda must end and the transfer restrictions on the men at Guantanamo in the NDAA must end... (note that you have to work through the discussion about how we treated prisoners in world war 11 to get to the gitmo part in the link- its about 5 minutes in...)
thanks for your bravery and courage mr. Johnson in holding off on discussing these important issues until after you left office.

In a similar...but different vein...UPDATED

The senate yesterday confirmed once again the laws allowing all of us to be spied on all the time without warrant...because the threat of terrorism is so great that we must give up our civil liberties...
Emptywheel has more here.

Gitmo History....

The history of the U. S. occupation of Guantanamo Bay is something that we tend to forget. To remind yourself as to why the whole base should be closed and given back to Cuba-after, of course, we release the remaining men- read this article from the guardian.

Happy Holidays.....sigh.

Gitmo in the news

I get these updates on news stories related to Guantanamo from the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) which has been the umbrella organization for the probono effort to represent the men at Guantanamo. If you have any money left in your pocket this would be the one organization I would ask you to make a donation.

Press TV: Obama furthering Bush legacy of war on terror

Truthdig: The Final Battle

The Argus: Five years in Guantanamo Bay have led Brighton man to help those in need

Lawfare: What is in the New NDAA, Why it Warrants a Veto, and Why it Probably Won’t Get One

New York Times: Acting C.I.A. Chief Critical of Film ‘Zero Dark Thirty’

Washington Post (Editorial): Mr. Obama’s inertia on Guantanamo

Aljazeera: To torture, or not to torture?

Andy Worthington: Torture, Torture Everywhere

Counterpunch: Zero Dark Thirty: Torture, Take Two

Miami Herald: Report: No imminent parole, release for Canadian ‘child soldier

Baltimore Sun: The shameful treatment of foreign children in U.S. custody

The Hill: President Obama must veto defense bill to close Gitmo

Los Angeles Times (Editorial): Free the CIA torture report

Spiegel: It's Time for the Truth about US Torture Methods