Gitmo Defense Lawyers Investigated For Giving Info To Detainees

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is investigating whether Guantanamo Bay detainees charged with roles in the Sept. 11 attacks were improperly given photos of CIA officers or contractors, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

The investigation, headed by the Justice Department's counterespionage chief, John Dion, is trying to determine if military lawyers defending the detainees divulged classified information or compromised covert CIA officers, according to the person, who was not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke only on condition of anonymity.

It is a violation of federal law to identify CIA covert personnel, and it is a violation of military commission rules to disclose classified information, even if only to the defendants.

The person who spoke to The Associated Press said the photos at issue were provided by the John Adams Project, a combined effort of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to assist in the defense of the detainees.

The investigation was first reported by The Washington Post on its Web site Thursday night. The ACLU told the Post the organization was confident no laws or regulations had been broken.

The lawyers defending terrorist suspects held at the Navy-run prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have sought to expose their clients' treatment at the hands of government interrogators, particularly those held in CIA "black sites" overseas, where harsh interrogation tactics were used. Critics of those tactics say they are torture.

Such treatment is likely to play a central role in expected trials for the detainees, either in federal criminal courts or at military commissions, and defense lawyers are expected to try to call CIA personnel and CIA contractors to testify.

Comments

[Chazmania]

America has become what it said it fights against.

[tompoe]

We must protect war criminals.

[Chazmania]

Only if they are American war criminals or there friends..

[newyorkid]

Why is it illegal to identify ClA t_orturers?

[Ergon]

How many days did Scooter Libby spend in jail for revealing Valerie Plame was CIA?

[tompoe]

Valerie Plame did not commit acts of torture on detainees.

[plaidsportcoat]

Is Obama Bush? Looks like it when he does this via holder

[jestanle]

Because it puts their lives in danger, and their families. The CIA does a necessary job, you can't out all undercover operatives because of the actions of a few. Get a clue we need people like this. There are people trying to kill Americans every day all over the world.

[goresabore]

If you have to ask than you are a t E RR IST yourself.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

Because it makes it more difficult to have show trials.

If the detainees can identify those who tortured them, their defense attorneys might be able to call the identified parties as witnesses.

[Vicks123]

When will they be moved to Michigan?

Michigan will be glad to accept these people - - - there isn't much else going on up there. What do they have to lose?

[plaidsportcoat]

Why are you so afraid if a prisoner is in a super max? Do you think there will be a truck bomb from al qaeda at a super max? It hasn't happened with any American thugs that are locked up like the chief of Enron who has more bucks on his side than al qaeda. oh, forgot - he screwed many more than 3,000 americans - more like over 36 million citizens of the state of California - so, since he's a Friend of Dick and a whitey, he's not in a Supermax. He's been congratulated and rewarded by the bush judge oligarchy and placed in LOW SECURITY in LIttleton, Colorado. But really what is the FEAR in America of having someone in prison here? Prove anything bad that happened in the past from this kind of prisoner being housed in solitary.... or whatever they do to them in sordid american prisons.

[taketheother]

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district where in the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

[TomZart]

THE JUST AND THE UNJUST


The just and the unjust shall clash as before
As both sides seek victory valor and more.
The tyrants of evil hate that which is good
Freedom, with justice, living life, as we should.

Where the oppressed suffer the heartless rule
Using murder, fear and torture as a tool.
With a twisted mind they cause others to die
Their souls are corrupted from living a lie.

At the end of their rain most are jailed or killed
The remains of their victims litter the field.
After death, they're judged through history by us all
Condemned for ignoring sweet liberty's call.

For as long as mankind has struggled on earth
Most seek a path, to show others their worth.
While the just feel compelled to defend what's right
The unjust ravage, plunder and kill with spite.


By Conservative Poet
Tom Zart
Most Published Poet
On The Web

[thaneb]

reign
for killed try 'sealed' evoking sealed in their tombs

[thaneb]

I'll try again. 1st one disappeared.
1) reign, not rain
2) to maintain couplet form try 'sealed' evoking the grave, rather than killed.

[plaidsportcoat]

Poet - use spell check or an editor

[thaneb]

Haven't the faintest why they scrubbed my reign for rain and suggestion for lines 10, 11 couplet. How in the world could that be a violation of anything?

[thaneb]

PS do you know of an "intelligent" spell check that will pick up a correctly-spelled homonym? Thanks.