From Roger Fitch and our friends down under at Justinian

Roger Fitch Esq • June 21, 2010

Supreme Court wonderland

In a decision the NY Times called disgraceful,
the Supreme Court denied certiorari to the Canadian Maher Arar in his civil damages case against US officials who rendered him to Syria as he transited JFK airport in 2002.

Arar was tortured there for 10 months.

The Canadians exonerated Arar, paid him millions in damages and apologised for their role in his rendition. The US, however, refused to take any action.

The Mounties are now investigating the US

Arar’s lawyer, David Cole (pic), has more to say.

CLICK ON THE TITLE FOR MORE........

You Can Run But You Cannot Hide

Since our president thinks that holding certain criminals responsible for their crimes distracts us from the future it is important that we the people do everything we can to hold those men and women responsible for their actions....In that vein is the attached complaint to the TEXAS STATE BOARD OF EXAMINERS OF PSYCHOLOGISTS regarding the conduct of one Dr. James Elmer Mitchell.

Click on the title for the complaint.

Thank you Charles Gittings at PEGS for this posting.

The "sideshow"

Last week the judge in my remaining clients case reluctantly recused himself in a most injudicious order. For some reason the judge, who sat on my recusal motion for months, decided that my motion...as opposed to the conduct of the DOJ was the real problem.

The talking dog has more here:

http://www.thetalkingdog.com/archives2/001460.html

NEW ACLU DOCUMENTS FROM FOIA REQUEST

Yesterday the ACLU received documents from the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice in response to a FOIA request on Bagram, particularly those that pertain to early Bush era global detention and release policy/including criteria for Gitmo transfers (2002-2004). This chilling phrase in the 2004 “Global Screening Criteria for Detainees” policy is actually similar to ones that I have seen being used in unclassified documents related to my own clients: commanders could “only transfer to Guantanamo those [enemy combatants] whose exploitation require[d] the specialized capabilities available at Guantánamo.”

You can find the documents here: http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/2010_06_08_DOJ_Release.pdf. There is an index at the beginning of the PDF.

CLICK ON THE TITLE FOR SOME of the interesting points highlighted by others....

Experiments in Torture

Experiments in Torture by Physicians For Human Rights is the first report to reveal evidence indicating that CIA medical personnel allegedly engaged in the crime of illegal experimentation after 9/11, in addition to the previously disclosed crime of torture. In their attempt to justify the war crime of torture, the CIA appears to have committed another alleged war crime—illegal experimentation on prisoners.

Click on the title to read the report......

And click here to read Scott Horton's take ....

Guantanamo censors....

When I was down at Guantanamo a few weeks ago I had a little time on my hands and now that they actually have wireless at the luxurious accommodations that we lawyers are forced to stay at I did a little web browsing to my favorite websites. Only problem was that one of those websites was blocked by the thugs that run the place: A Canadian website called Galloping Beaver. Last week I sent a short email to the Beaver congratulating them for being controversial enough to be banned from the base and they followed with this post.

For those of you who have been thinking in the back of your mind that you can always flee to Canada when things get (more) unbearable here you might want to check out the Beaver for a reality check....things are not all that great up north when it comes to democracy either.

LOOKING FORWARD.....

Former President Bush bragged this past week about his policy of waterboarding those suspected of terrorism (key word being "suspected")....but of course even though waterboarding is torture and torture is against the law (or was against the law) in this here country of mine the current powers to be have decided to turn their collective cheeks....which of curse is easy for them since it was not their cheeks that were smacked....

Of course Bush only spoke about his joy in waterboarding KSM.....I wonder how he will respond to questions about waterboarding Abu Zubaydah (some 100 times) as the government has now been forced to admit Abu Z was not al-Qaeda or taliban....just some smuck who had the misfortune to be captured by my criminal Government.......

anyway Scott Horton has more here.

Task Force Report

Obama set up the Task Force shortly after taking office to review the gitmo detainees and to make recommendations as to whether they should be released, prosecuted or detained forever without charge. The task force completed its job in January and they just got around to releasing the report....click on the title to review.

As for my two clients- Mr. Al-Ghizzawi was cleared for release and ultimately released in March of this year to the country of Georgia. Razak Ali was not cleared for release and is apparently on the list to be detained forever, although the reason for his being in this category boggles the mind.

emptywheel has more on the report here.

Take Action and Support the military lawyer who refused to prosectute a man who was tortured into confessing......

A former prosecutor who blew the whistle on the abuse of our Constitution in the Guantanamo Bay military commissions is now in danger of losing his 19-year military career. Lieutenant Colonel Darrel Vandeveld was retaliated against for having the courage to follow orders and speak the truth about the mockery of due process afforded to detainees in Guantanamo Bay.

On June 1, a military promotions board will meet, ironically, not to honor or promote Lt. Col. Vandeveld, a highly decorated member of the U.S. Army Reserve Judge Advocate General Corps who served in Bosnia, Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan, as both a solder in combat and a prosecutor. More than likely, they will smear his name, preventing him from an honorable retirement just 4 months away from 20 years of outstanding service to our nation.

Lt. Col. Vandeveld needs your help to defend his honor, as he has stood up to defend the Constitution.

TAKE ACTION NOW! Demand that the Secretary of Defense protect Lt. Col Vandeveld, and grant him the honor he has earned.

Lt. Col. Vandeveld resigned from his position at Guantanamo, because he could not ethically or legally prosecute Mohammed Jawad. The Jawad case brought to light many of the problems occurring at Guantanamo, including abusive interrogations, evidence withheld from the defense, judicial incompetence, and confessions coerced through torture. Lt. Col. Vandeveld gave judge-ordered testimony in the Jawad case, and in return for his honesty under oath and the public outrage that followed, the military issued him his first negative performance evaluation.

My Country should be so embarrassed....and so should Canada

Click on the title to read the latest statement from UNICEF regarding the Canadian held at Guantanamo since he was 15 years old........

House Armed Service Committee Votes to Keep Gitmo Open and Investigate Lawyers Who Represent the Men at Gitmo

The final text of the House Armed Services Committee-passed National

Defense Authorization Act has been posted on the House Rules Committee's

website: www.rules.house.gov. The key pages seem to be pages 389-406.

The following provision in the NDAA 2011 (at pp.403-05) requiring the DOD Inspector General to investigate habeas counsel and commissions defense counsel for interfering with DOD operations:

(a) IN GENERAL.-The Inspector General of the Department of Defense shall conduct an investigation of the conduct and practices of lawyers described in subsection (c)...

(c) LAWYERS DESCRIBED.-The lawyers described in this subsection are military and non-military lawyers-(1) who represent individuals described in subsection (d) in proceedings relating to petitions for habeas corpus or in military commissions; and (2) for whom there is reasonable suspicion that they have engaged in conduct or practices described in subsection (a)(1).

Other notable provisions include:

- No release into the US

- No transfer to the US, until 120 days after comprehensive plan is submitted to Congress re: disposition of each detainee

- No transfer or resettlement to any foreign country, until 30 days after certification to Congress re: risks, etc.

- No transfer to any country with confirmed case of recidivism, unless waived by SECDEF

- No funds to construct or modify any facility in the US to house GTMO detainees

- Report on the merits, costs and risks of using any facility in the US to house GTMO detainees

IF YOU CARE ABOUT THESE THINGS PLEASE CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVE AND SENATORS AND TELL THEM TO VOTE NO ON THESE PROVISIONS.........

Catching up...

A lot has happened over the past couple of weeks while I was at Guantanamo for a week and then taking some time to catch up...

First one of the best decisions to come out of the DC District Court was shot down by the DC Circuit paving the way for new Guantanamos around the world. This particular one is in Afghanistan... the decision can be found here and Scotusblog has more on the decision and its possible ramifications.

The Guantanamo testimonial project has a new interview. This one is of Alfred Souza who discusses the treatment of some of the most vulnerable men at Guantanamo, those with mental heath issues. Read the interview here. "In that interview, condecorated corpsman Souza tells about the dehumanization of the Guantanamo prisoners, and in particular those in the Psych Ward, where he found mentally-ill patients locked up in small places and punished with extreme deprivation for not complying with orders."

Also, be watching for more men to be leaving the prison. The Obama administration apparently has decided that it is ok to send men to countries where they have legitimate fears of prosecution.

And finally, Elena Kagan....I will have more to say later but basically I think she will be just fine. All of this yakking about her lack of judicial experience is just a distraction to me....I mean we have all seen what a great help all of that legal experience has done for people like Roberts and Alito.

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under at Justinian

From Justinian:

Roger Fitch Esq • May 7, 2010

Our Man in Washington

Terror trial dramas … The Omar Khadr case where the crimes are unknown to the law of war … Manipulating the Military Commission system … New rule that a law of war conviction doesn’t require a law of war violation … Pentagon bans four leading reporters from Guantánamo

The US had two terror-trial dramas scheduled for the last week of April. Both departed from script.

In New York, the case of Syed “Fahad” Hashmi was set for trial. Hashmi, an American citizen, was charged with material support for terrorism because he let an acquaintance store luggage in his London flat for two weeks which turned out to contain waterproof socks, ponchos and sleeping bags destined for al-Qaeda.

(CLICK ON THE TITLE TO CONTINUE......)

A wrap-up of the week at the kangaroo court.....

Click on the title to read Spencer Ackerman's wrap up of this weeks travesty at Gitmo.

And what happens when you report publicly available information?

This is a subject I know all too well...Last year a judge in Mr. al-Ghizzawi's case barred me (and only me) from talking about the fact that Mr. al-Ghizzawi had been cleared for release....despite the fact that the same information was available all over the internet and the Government itself cleared the information for public release. Today the kangaroo court down at Guantanamo has given the boot to some of the best reporters covering Guantanamo (including the Miami Herald's Carol Rosenberg) for publishing the name of interrogator no. 1 at the Khadr hearing today. Interrogator no. 1 is Joshua Klaus and since he has his own entry on wikipedia you can read more about him here.

Click on the title for more from Spencer Ackerman.

Emptywheel has more here.