Guantanamo 'Spying' Threatens Military Commissions: New Report

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military has made it impossible for lawyers and their clients at Guantanamo Bay to have confidence that their communications weren’t being recorded, a new report claims.

"The United States military and intelligence agencies have built an environment in which it is impossible for attorneys and their clients to have any privacy at all in Echo II," the report, from Seton Hall University School of Law's Center for Policy & Research, concludes.

"Every meeting room in which attorneys have been permitted to meet with their clients contained live microphones, disguised as ordinary objects, sensitive enough to detect the slightest whisper," the report states. "Every room in which attorneys have been permitted to meet with their clients contains cameras capable of the functional equivalent of detecting the slightest whisper – zooming in to read very tiny writing. Every whispered word can be heard. Every written word can be read."

The report comes as hearings scheduled at Guantanamo for next week were delayed in part because confidential emails between defense attorneys were exposed to the prosecution. Earlier this year, a military commissions judge was surprised to learn that an outside censor -- almost certainly the CIA -- had the ability to cut off the video feed of the proceeding.