[Peace-discuss] Fwd: U.S. Seeks Silence on CIA Prisons

[Morton K. Brussel]

If this doesn't send a chill of horror down your spine, an fright at  
at the drift in this country as it swings towards totalitarianism,  
what will? Kafkaesque. --mkb

> U.S. Seeks Silence on CIA Prisons
> Court Is Asked to Bar Detainees From Talking About Interrogations
>
> By Carol D. Leonnig and Eric Rich
> Washington Post Staff Writers
> Saturday, November 4, 2006; A01
>
>
> The Bush administration has told a federal judge that terrorism  
> suspects held in secret CIA prisons should not be allowed to reveal  
> details of the "alternative interrogation methods" that their  
> captors used to get them to talk.
>
> The government says in new court filings that those interrogation  
> methods are now among the nation's most sensitive national security  
> secrets and that their release -- even to the detainees' own  
> attorneys -- "could reasonably be expected to cause extremely grave  
> damage." Terrorists could use the information to train in counter- 
> interrogation techniques and foil government efforts to elicit  
> information about their methods and plots, according to government  
> documents submitted to U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton on Oct.  
> 26.
>
> The battle over legal rights for terrorism suspects detained for  
> years in CIA prisons centers on Majid Khan, a 26-year-old former  
> Catonsville resident who was one of 14 high-value detainees  
> transferred in September from the "black" sites to the U.S.  
> military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A lawyer with the Center  
> for Constitutional Rights, which represents many detainees at  
> Guantanamo, is seeking emergency access to him.
>
> The government, in trying to block lawyers' access to the 14  
> detainees, effectively asserts that the detainees' experiences are  
> a secret that should never be shared with the public.
>
> Because Khan "was detained by CIA in this program, he may have come  
> into possession of information, including locations of detention,  
> conditions of detention, and alternative interrogation techniques  
> that is classified at the TOP SECRET//SCI level," an affidavit from  
> CIA Information Review Officer Marilyn A. Dorn states, using the  
> acronym for "sensitive compartmented information."
>
> Gitanjali Gutierrez, an attorney for Khan's family, responded in a  
> court document yesterday that there is no evidence that Khan had  
> top-secret information. "Rather," she said, "the executive is  
> attempting to misuse its classification authority . . . to conceal  
> illegal or embarrassing executive conduct."
>
> Joseph Margulies, a Northwestern University law professor who has  
> represented several detainees at Guantanamo, said the prisoners  
> "can't even say what our government did to these guys to elicit the  
> statements that are the basis for them being held. Kafka-esque  
> doesn't do it justice. This is 'Alice in Wonderland.' "
>
> Kathleen Blomquist, a Justice Department spokeswoman, said  
> yesterday that details of the CIA program must be protected from  
> disclosure. She said the lawyer's proposal for talking with Khan  
> "is inadequate to protect unique and potentially highly classified  
> information that is vital to our country's ability to fight  
> terrorism."
>
> Government lawyers also argue in court papers that detainees such  
> as Khan previously held in CIA sites have no automatic right to  
> speak to lawyers because the new Military Commissions Act, signed  
> by President Bush last month, stripped them of access to U.S.  
> courts. That law established separate military trials for terrorism  
> suspects.
>
> The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is  
> considering whether Guantanamo detainees have the right to  
> challenge their imprisonment in U.S. courts. The government urged  
> Walton to defer any decision on access to lawyers until the higher  
> court rules.
>
> The government filing expresses concern that detainee attorneys  
> will provide their clients with information about the outside world  
> and relay information about detainees to others. In an affidavit,  
> Guantanamo's staff judge advocate, Cmdr. Patrick M. McCarthy, said  
> that in one case a detainee's attorney took questions from a BBC  
> reporter with him into a meeting with a detainee at the camp. Such  
> indirect interviews are "inconsistent with the purpose of counsel  
> access" at the prison, McCarthy wrote.
>
> Dorn said in the court papers that for lawyers to speak to former  
> CIA detainees under the security protocol used for other Guantanamo  
> detainees "poses an unacceptable risk of disclosure." But detainee  
> attorneys said they have followed the protocol to the letter, and  
> none has been accused of releasing information without government  
> clearance.
>
> Captives who have spent time in the secret prisons, and their  
> advocates, have said the detainees were sometimes treated harshly  
> with techniques that included "waterboarding," which simulates  
> drowning. Bush has declared that the administration will not  
> tolerate the use of torture but has pressed to retain the use of  
> unspecified "alternative" interrogation methods.
>
> The government argues that once rules are set for the new military  
> commissions, the high-value detainees will have military lawyers  
> and "unprecedented" rights to challenge charges against them in  
> that venue.
>
> U.S. officials say Khan, a Pakistani national who lived in the  
> United States for seven years, took orders from Khalid Sheik  
> Mohammed, the man accused of orchestrating the Sept. 11, 2001,  
> attacks. Mohammed allegedly asked Khan to research poisoning U.S.  
> reservoirs and considered him for an operation to assassinate the  
> Pakistani president.
>
> In a separate court document filed last night, Khan's attorneys  
> offered declarations from Khaled al-Masri, a released detainee who  
> said he was held with Khan in a dingy CIA prison called "the salt  
> pit" in Afghanistan. There, prisoners slept on the floor, wore  
> diapers and were given tainted water that made them vomit, Masri  
> said. American interrogators treated him roughly, he said, and told  
> him he "was in a land where there were no laws."
>
> Khan's family did not learn of his whereabouts until Bush announced  
> his transfer in September, more than three years after he was  
> seized in Pakistan.
>
> The family said Khan was staying with a brother in Karachi,  
> Pakistan, in March 2003 when men, who were not in uniform, burst  
> into the apartment late one night and put hoods over the heads of  
> Khan, his brother Mohammad and his brother's wife. The couple's 1- 
> month-old son was also seized.
>
> Another brother, Mahmood Khan, who has lived in the United States  
> since 1989, said in an interview this week that the four were  
> hustled into police vehicles and taken to an undisclosed location,  
> where they were separated and held in windowless rooms. His sister- 
> in-law and her baby remained together, he said.
>
> According to Mahmood, Mohammad said they were questioned repeatedly  
> by men who identified themselves as members of Pakistan's  
> intelligence service and others who identified themselves as U.S.  
> officials. Mohammad's wife was released after seven days, and he  
> was released after three months, without charge. He was left on a  
> street corner without explanation, Mahmood said.
>
> Periodically, he said, people who identified themselves as  
> Pakistani officials contacted Mohammad and assured him that his  
> brother would soon be released and that they ought not contact a  
> lawyer or speak with the news media.
>
> "We had no way of knowing who had him or where he was," Mahmood  
> Khan said this week at the family home outside Baltimore. He said  
> they complied with the requests because they believed anything else  
> could delay his brother's release.
>
> In Maryland, Khan's family was under constant FBI surveillance from  
> the moment of his arrest, his brother said. The FBI raided their  
> house the day after the arrest , removing computer equipment,  
> papers and videos. Each family member was questioned extensively  
> and shown photographs of terrorism suspects that Mahmood Khan said  
> none of them recognized. For much of the next year, he said, they  
> were followed everywhere.
>
> "Pretty much we were scared," he said. "We live in this country. We  
> have everything here."
>
> Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
>
> -Original is at:
> http://www.washingtonpost.com

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.chambana.net/cgi-bin/private/peace-discuss/attachments/20061104/5dbcb7ca/attachment.html