Government secrecy is often not about national security
Quite often materials are classified simply to hide embarrassing failure or worse—and that seems to have been the case at Guantánamo. Tom Lasseter and Carol Rosenberg report for McClatchy:
U.S. military intelligence assessing the threat of nearly 800 men held at Guantanamo in many cases used information from a small group of captives whose accounts now appear to be questionable, according to a McClatchy analysis of a trove of secret documents from the facility.
The allegations and observations of just eight detainees were used to help build cases against some 255 men at Guantanamo — roughly a third of all who passed through the prison. Yet the testimony of some of the eight was later questioned by Guantanamo analysts themselves, and the others were subjected to interrogation tactics that defense attorneys say amounted to torture and compromised the veracity of their information. . .
The Military Tribunal process must allow Defense Attorneys to challenge evidence brought forth by the Government. We are and will remain a civilized society and Military Tribunals must provide the same basic fairness as our civilian justice system.
Professor Weatherwick
26 April 2011 at 6:28 am