Have the Spooks Finally Admitted to Congress They’ve Been “Exploiting” Gitmo Detainees as Spies?

/in , , /by

Something funny happened yesterday.

The House Armed Services Committee had a hearing on Gitmo Detainee Transfer Policy. According to Carol Rosenberg’s tweeting, up to two hours of the hearing was conducted in closed session before the hearing opened to the public and the witnesses explained that the interesting details–like the “recidivists” names and the amount paid to other countries to accept detainees–are secret (meaning they presumably got reported in that secret session).

DIA’s Ed Mornston says names of ex-#Guantanamo captives who “re-engaged” after release are secret “to protect sources and methods.”

Rosenberg’s story on the hearing reports that fewer of the detainees released under Obama are “reengaging” than the detainees released under Bush.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that three of the 68 Guantanamo detainees released since Barack Obama became president have engaged in terrorism or insurgency, a senior administration told Congress Wednesday.

[snip]

He declined to say, however, who the men were or where they were sent after Guantanamo. He also wouldn’t say when U.S. intelligence crunched its latest figure.

The rate of so-called return-to-battlefield detainees, however, is far less than what the Defense Intelligence Agency determined it was during the George W. Bush administration. In a report released in December, the DIA reported that 79 of 532 detainees released during the Bush administration had engaged in terrorism or insurgency.

All of which makes me wonder whether the spooks have finally stopped counting detainees whom we’ve recruited as spies to infiltrate al Qaeda as “recidivists.”

While no one ever talks about such things, it is safe to assume the government has been releasing some number of Gitmo detainees with the understanding that they’ll infiltrate (or return to, for the small percentage that actually had ties before Gitmo) al Qaeda and report back to the US on its operations. As Jeff Kaye and Jason Leopold has reported, the US abused detainees in order to get them to spy on others within Gitmo. There were quiet reports that the reason we used torture at Abu Ghraib was to recruit spies. And the example of Jabir al Fayfi, who was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007, underwent the Saudi retraining program, and then “fled” to Yemen, only to return and alert the Saudis of the toner cartridge plot last year, is most easily explained by assuming that Fayfi was a spy, either ours or Saudi Arabia’s.

While no one will ever talk about this, we can be sure that some of the Gitmo detainees who appear to “reengage” are doing so on orders from us.

So how are those former detainees counted? DIA would have a really big incentive to label them “recidivists,” because doing so would be important for their cover. They’re not going to stay alive very long if the US isn’t screaming bloody murder about them returning to the battlefield. But of course, so long as they don’t become double agents (which I would imagine happens a lot, if only because it’s a good way to stay alive for these guys), they aren’t really “recidivists;” rather, they are men who were coerced to become spies and are taking great risks to do so.

Which is why I find yesterday’s hush hush–and today’s lower “recidivism” news–so interesting. By not releasing the names of those who have “reengaged,” DIA presumably makes it easy for these men to sustain their cover. But given the lower numbers, it’s just possible that either we’ve run out of men at Gitmo who agree to spy for us (and so are counting fewer of them as “recidivists”), or we’re simply not counting them fraudulently as “recidivists.”

But consider what else has been going on with these “recidivism” claims: a central reason why we can’t close Gitmo, the fearmongers say, is because people keep “returning” to al Qaeda when we release them.

Well, now the Administration has capitulated on a key Gitmo issue, and voila! The recidivism numbers are lower!

You see why Gitmo is important to the government’s “exploitation” goals, not just for recruiting spies, but also for lying to the American people?

Administration Continues to Cling to Precedent of Slavery, Genocide, and Illegal Belligerency to Legitimize Its Actions

/in /by

It has increasingly become clear that the Obama Administration treats the category of “terrorist” more flexibly than the Bush Administration did. With the introduction of the term “countering violent extremism,” for example, the Administration broadened the potential application of terrorist tools to those who were simply, according to them, “extremists.” Then there’s the odd treatment of a bunch of Colombian right wing terrorists, who were extradited on drug charges (but not terrorism), and then entirely disappeared from the docket, with allegations that at least one of them had been freed. And while the Obama Administration has charged some white people with using WMD (a terrorism crime), the disparity in its use is stark.

Carol Rosenberg has been tracking another telling example of the Obama Administration’s flexible interpretations of terrorist-like activity: DOD’s citation of a legally suspect ruling about an attack on Seminoles as precedent for trying material support for terrorism in military commissions.

Pentagon prosecutors touched off a protest — and issued an apology this week — for likening the Seminole Indians in Spanish Florida to al Qaeda in documents defending Guantánamo’s military commissions.

Citing precedents, prosecutors reached back into the Indian Wars in arguments at an appeals panel in Washington D.C. Specifically, they invoked an 1818 military commission convened by Gen. Andrew Jackson after U.S. forces invaded then-Spanish Florida to stop black slaves from fleeing through a porous border — then executed two British men for helping the Seminole Indians.

Navy Capt. Edward S. White also wrote this in a prosecution brief:

“Not only was the Seminole belligerency unlawful, but, much like modern-day al Qaeda, the very way in which the Seminoles waged war against U.S. targets itself violate the customs and usages of war.”

In other words, our government is siding with slavery, genocide of Native Americans, and Andrew Jackson’s illegal belligerency–it is citing our own country’s illegal behavior–to find some support for the claim that material support is a military crime.

Not surprisingly, the Seminole tribe objected (see Rosenberg’s collection of documents in the case here).  And now Jeh Johnson (he of the claim that Martin Luther King would have empathized with the attacks on Afghans) has apologized to the tribe–but reiterated our reliance on the precedent.

The Pentagon’s top lawyer has sent the Seminole Tribe of Florida what amounts to an apology for Guantánamo war court lawyers likening al Qaida to the Native American tribe in 1818.

But Defense Department general counsel Jeh Johnson made clear in the single-page letter that the U.S. government was standing by its precedent from Gen. Andrew Jackson’s Indian Wars in its bid to uphold the life-time conviction of Osama bin Laden’s media secretary at Guantánamo’s Camp Justice.

And so it is that our government clings desperately to one of the darkest chapters of our history to legitimize its current actions. Rather than reflect on what that means–how damning it is that we can point only to Andrew Jackson’s illegal treatment of Native Americans to justify our current conduct–the government says simply, “a precedent is a precedent!”

Apparently, our country has learned nothing in the last 200 years.

Update: Jackson corrected for Johnson, thanks to JTIDAHO.

DOJ: Iraq Had No Al Qaeda Affiliates (Working Thread on KSM Indictment)

/in /by

As Eric Holder said, he had the December 14, 2009 indictment of KSM and the other 9/11 defendants unsealed. Here is the indictment.

Page 3: Note in their description of why al Qaeda targeted the US, they make no mention of Palestinians, even though they were mentioned explicitly in the Fatwa?

Page 3: Note the list of al Qaeda affiliates in paragraph 4. Note what’s missing? Iraq.

Page 4: The indictment says Muhammad Atef was “responsible for supervising the terrorist training of al Qaeda members.” I take this as an implicit admission they were lying about Abu Zubaydah for all those years (though on page 5, they do list Khalden and Derunta as campes which al Qaeda “sponsored, managed, and financially supported”).

Page 4: The indictment lists KSM, Walid Bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi as members of the media committee.

Page 5: Note the reference to “assorted training manuals.” We’ve always seen discussion of one manual, the Manchester manual. I find the reference particularly interesting given that Bruce Jessen and James Mitchell justified their torture based on what they read in an unspecified manual.

Page 6: The description of the manuals includes this, which served as justification for torture:

Al Qaeda provided counter-interrogation training to its personnel, which, among other things, required captured operatives to lie to authorities to prevent detection of an ongoing plot.

Page 8: Note how they reference Moussaoui:

In 2001, Zacarias Moussaoui, a co-conspirator not named as a defendant herein, traveled to the United States and took pilot and jet-simulator training in Oklahoma and Minnesota.

Page 9: They make no mention of Mohammed al-Qahtani among the list of hijackers, intended or not.

Page 14: KSM trained hijackers to use short-bladed knives by killing sheep and camels.

Page 15: The indictment describes which flights Walid bin Attash tested cockpit safety (in Asia). The sourcing on this is rather interesting–for example, how did they learn that Attash had a Leatherman on his January 2000 Malaysian flight? The question is particularly interesting given that we should expect they would not use anything that came from the defendants here, so as to avoid any torture taint.

Page 16: It’s actually really helpful that they list what flight each hijacker eventually ended up on–it really helps you to see how the Hamburg cell ended up on the planes. I wish the 9/11 Report had done that!

Pages 18-19: Some of the details on overseas financing are quite interesting (particularly given my discussion about SWIFT this morning).

Page 20: Again, the level of detail for KSM’s actions raise interesting questions about source. Also, note that KSM’s order to send $$ to the hijackers post-dates (April 2001) the list of transfers on the previous pages.

Page 20: I’m particularly curious about this mention.

In or about mid-April 2001, KHALID SHEIKH MOHAMMED expressed frustration to RAMZI BIN AL-SHIBH that a hijacker was not traveling to the United States sooner.

Particularly given the detail, I wonder whether the hijacker in question was al-Qahtani (who tried to enter the country on August 3, 2001).

Page 23, 24: Note the list of precisely how many calls the hijackers made to al-Hawsawi and bin al-Shibh, but not what was said.

Page 25: Did we know KSM applied for an entry visa on July 23, 2001?

Page 25: Note they include payments to Moussaoui.

Page 26: Ah, we finally get reference to al-Qahtani, named as “Co-Conspirator 1” in the indictment.

Page 27: Note the stupid, gratuitous reference to “Reagan National Airport” but not to “McCarren International Airport” in Las Vegas.

Page 27: They describe the knife Moussaoui had when he was arrested (a Leatherman).

Page 27: Paragraph 145 doesn’t provide the date or the method by which the hijackers told KSM of the date of the attack, even though it has been reported. This seems an unnecessary exclusion of legally collected NSA information.

Page 29: They seem not to know precise details of how bin al-Shibh got from Spain on September 5 to Dubai on September 9, 2001.

Page 32: Note the reference to a post-9/11 meeting between bin al-Shibh, al-Hawsawi, and Osama bin Laden that was taped. Have we seen this tape?

Page 36-37: Count 4, Violence on and Destruction of Aircraft, applies only to Flights 11 and 175 (the two WTC flights). Anyone know why?

Page 37: Count 5, Conspiracy to Commit Aircraft Piracy, continues through March 1, 2003, when they captured KSM. (Now that I check, so does Count 3.)

Page 40: Counts 7 and 8 are murder charges tied to unnamed Federal Officers who were at WTC. Given the number of first responders who died, these two officers could be anyone. But remember that CIA’s office got destroyed in the WTC attack, though none of their personnel were reported to have died. [Update: Ron Brynaert has suggested these two are probably FBI Special Agent Lennie Hatton and Secret Service Master Special Officer Craig Miller, who ran into the towers to help with rescues. Both are listed among the rest of the victims in the WTC list.]

Page 41: The indictment alleges that the accused continued in their conspiracy to kill Americans up to the filing of the indictment.

Page 43: There’s a weird hodge podge of acts included in Count 10 to substantiate the conspiracy to kill Americans. Notably, it includes KSM and Ali Abdul Aziz conspiring in November and December 2001 to attack planes with shoe bombs (Richard Reid made his attempt on December 22, 2001). But they don’t allege anything with regards to Jose Padilla. Nor wrt Iyman Faris or Majid Khan, both plots KSM allegedly reported.

Pages 45-80 have the list of all the victims of the attack (along with the two anonymous officers listed in Counts 7 and 8). I think that’s the most impressive part of the indictment, seeing the list of names like that.

Eric Holder: Moving KSM Trial to Gitmo Wrong Decision, But We’re Doing It Anyway

/in /by

There was something I appreciated about the Holder press conference capitulating on trying the 9/11 defendants in civilian trials.

He didn’t try to spin it as a good idea.

Not only did he reiterate his judgment that trying KSM in a civilian trial was the right decision, he also noted that it’s not clear whether military commissions can impose the death penalty on someone who pleads guilty.

And then he ended the presser quickly, as if he had to rush upstairs to his office to vacate it so some General could move in.

That said, it’s clear that Holder lost an important battle, one he believed in. Here’s what Jane Mayer reports on the work SDNY’s prosecutors have already done on the trial.

Holder and some of the smartest prosecutors in the country had prepared what they believed was the strongest case possible against K.S.M. Lawyers involved in the effort told me they had spent years on it, and had files filled with killer evidence, just waiting for trial. Careers had been devoted to compiling an impeccable case. By using the civilian justice system, Holder had wanted to send several important messages, among them that terrorists are criminals, not some new breed of super warrior; and that the U.S. legal system is the strongest, fairest, and most credible system in the world. A guilty verdict arrived at in front of the world, in a public trial, with ordinary citizens sitting in judgment of K.S.M., would be internationally accepted as legitimate, in a way that no military tribunal ever will be. Or so the thinking went.

Of course, if Holder cared that much about these principles–and I believe he does–it would sure be nice to see him resign rather than preside over the continued decline of our commitment to the rule of law.

(Holder’s full statement–with my emphasis on select points–is below the line.)

Update: Here’s the indictment from 2009 unsealed today. It lists all the known victims of 9/11.

Read more →

Holder’s Press Conference Liveblog

/in /by

Holder: I stand by decision that best venue for prosecution civilian court.

Had developed plans for dealing with classified evidence.

“Members of Congress have intervened.”

Decisions about who, where, to prosecute have always been made by members of Executive Branch. Yet they’ve taken one of the nation’s most tested counter-terrorism tools off the table.

We must face a simple truth. Cannot allow trial be delayed any longer.

Move prosecutors to dismiss indictment filed in civilian courts.

Effectiveness of federal prosecutors have been subjected to unfair and unfounded criticisms.

Too many people–many of whom do know better–have expressed doubts about our federal courts.

Our National Security demands that we continue to prosecute terrorists in federal courts. Our heritage demands that we have full faith in court system.

Want to thank federal prosecutors who have spent countless hours working to bring this to trial.

It is my sincere hope that we will be able to deliver the justice [victims families] have so long deserved.

Open question on death penalty: Holder defers to DOD.

This Presidential Campaign Brought to You by a Massive Capitulation on Civilian Law

/in /by

Reports are trickling out that Eric Holder will announce an epic cave this afternoon on his earlier decision to try the 9/11 defendants in civilian courts.

Attorney General Eric Holder today will announce that self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will be tried in a military commission, CBS News has learned. A source says the commission will be held at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

As Adam Serwer and MadDog have pointed out, how pathetic that this announcement comes on the same day that Obama launches his reelection campaign with a note that says, in part,

So even though I’m focused on the job you elected me to do, and the race may not reach full speed for a year or more, the work of laying the foundation for our campaign must start today.

We’ve always known that lasting change wouldn’t come quickly or easily. It never does. But as my administration and folks across the country fight to protect the progress we’ve made — and make more — we also need to begin mobilizing for 2012, long before the time comes for me to begin campaigning in earnest.

[snip]

We’ll start by doing something unprecedented: coordinating millions of one-on-one conversations between supporters across every single state, reconnecting old friends, inspiring new ones to join the cause, and readying ourselves for next year’s fight.

Because nothing says “laying the foundation” of a Presidential campaign and “inspiring new” supporters like caving to fearmongering.

Where Will Obama Try Himself for Material Support for Terrorism?

/in , /by

I consider this a wicked brain teaser:

The Obama administration is engaged in a fierce debate over whether to supply weapons to the rebels in Libya, senior officials said on Tuesday, with some fearful that providing arms would deepen American involvement in a civil war and that some fighters may have links to Al Qaeda.

The debate has drawn in the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon, these officials said, and has prompted an urgent call for intelligence about a ragtag band of rebels who are waging a town-by-town battle against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, from a base in eastern Libya long suspected of supplying terrorist recruits.

“Al Qaeda in that part of the country is obviously an issue,” a senior official said.

On a day when Libyan forces counterattacked, fears about the rebels surfaced publicly on Capitol Hill on Tuesday when the military commander of NATO, Adm. James G. Stavridis, told a Senate hearing that there were “flickers” in intelligence reports about the presence of Qaeda and Hezbollah members among the anti-Qaddafi forces. No full picture of the opposition has emerged, Admiral Stavridis said. While eastern Libya was the center of Islamist protests in the late 1990s, it is unclear how many groups retain ties to Al Qaeda.

After all, according to Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project any help to a terrorist group–even counseling on how to make peace–is material support. And no matter how we try to spin arming rebels as an act of peace, it’s a good deal more help than legal counsel.

And, as the DC Circuit’s decision yesterday in Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman’s habeas suit makes clear, it’s not enough for a person to stop associating with al Qaeda in the 1990s, nor does the government need any real evidence of a tie between someone in al Qaeda’s vicinity to claim that person is a member of al Qaeda.

Uthman filed a challenge, and in February 2010, District Court Judge Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. ruled that he was being improperly held and that the United States had failed to demonstrate that he was a member of al-Qaeda. As ProPublica detailed, the government censored Kennedy’s decision and quickly appealed the case to a court that was already lowering the government’s burden for proving a prisoner’s detainability.

In another case last year, known as Salahi, the appeals court rejected a lower court’s standard that the government show direct evidence the detainee was a member of al-Qaeda. In that case, the court sent the detainee back to the district court to have his habeas corpus petition reheard.

In today’s opinion, written by Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the appeals court went further by reversing the habeas win outright. In doing so, the court determined that circumstantial evidence, such as a detainee being in the same location as other al-Qaeda members, is enough to meet the standard to hold a prisoner without charge.

That standard, the court wrote in its decision today, “along with uncontested facts in the record, demonstrate that Uthman more likely than not was part of al Qaeda.”

By the DC Circuit’s standards, it seems clear, at least some of the rebels we’ve been helping (and are debating arming) are the same as al Qaeda for legal purposes.

Which would mean we’ve already been offering material support to terrorists.

If I were Obama, I’d make the decision quickly about where he wants to be tried for material support of terrorism. If Bud McKeon has his way, he’ll take away the President’s decision-making authority on whether to try Americans in civilian or military trials.

So if you’re the President and need to decide where to try yourself for material support for terror, where do you do it?

Update: Mark Hosenball cites four different sources saying Obama signed a covert order to arm the rebels 2-3 weeks ago.

Obama signed the order, known as a presidential “finding”, within the last two or three weeks, according to four U.S. government sources familiar with the matter.

I forget. Does material support for terrorists done under cover of a Finding qualify as material support for terror?

It’s all so confusing!!!

Why Won’t Jeh Johnson Answer Hank Johnson’s Question about Forced Nudity?

/in , , /by

The House Armed Services Committee is having a hearing on Law of War Detention. Much of it has focused on Jeh Johnson affirming that military commissions line up with American values. (In other words, it is fairly depressing.)

But an interesting exchange happened when Hank Johnson had his turn. He set up his question by talking about a recent trip to Gitmo. He described the good treatment he saw the detainees being subject to. Jeh Johnson said that we’re following the Geneva Conventions.

Then he said (working from memory), so why is Bradley Manning being subject to worse treatment.

Frankly, Hank Johnson got a few details incorrect (for example, he said that Manning had to wear shackles in his cell). But he went through Manning’s treatment reasonably well.

In response, Jeh Johnson reverted immediately to the importance of pretrial detention. He used the same old lie about Manning being able to talk to others in his cell block. Here’s a rough liveblog:

not in solitary confinement. Public misinformation. It is public that he is currently in classification status called Maximum security. Someone in Max occupies same type of cell that a medium security pretrial detainee. Same time of cell. You could have Max security and medium confinee in the same row of cells and they could converse with one another.

(That would be true if anyone was in a cell close enough to him to be able to talk to, but there isn’t.)

But perhaps most tellingly, Jeh Johnson didn’t address Hank Johnson’s question about the forced nudity Manning is being subject to.

Ultimately, Buck McKeon cut off Hank Johnson, saying that Jeh Johnson could answer him “off the record.” (?) I hope he meant for the record; we shall see.)

But for now, at least, it appears that Jeh Johnson really doesn’t want to talk about why Manning is being subject to a policy implemented–and then rejected–at Gitmo.

The Secrets Military Commissions Keep that Civilian Courts Don’t

/in /by

As I mentioned in my earlier post on the new Gitmo protective order, DOD is reportedly preparing to charge Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri for his role in the Cole bombing for trial in a military commission. That’s worth keeping in mind because the Gitmo order is largely based on the protective order the DC District Court uses for habeas cases. The Gitmo order chose not to simply adopt the DC District order, though, suggesting the differences may have been crafted for people like al-Nashiri.

While some of the changes are just procedural, others are more telling. A central difference is the assertion that everything a High Value Detainee says will be presumptively treated as Top Secret/SCI (an update to the DC District order, issued before Abu Zubaydah’s lawyers got materials in his habeas case, includes treatment of TS/SCI information). So anything al-Nashiri tells his attorney about the torture he suffered–including the torture still allegedly being investigated by DOJ–will be considered TS/SCI.

In a similar vein, the prohibition on sharing detainee statements in classified documents I mentioned earlier is an addition to the DC District order.

Statements of the detainee that detainee’s counsel acquires from classified documents cannot be shared with the detainee absent authorization from the appropriate government agency authorized to declassify the classified information.

Curiously, the Gitmo order includes an extra requirement before attorneys get access to classified information: that the attorney,

provid[e] to the Chief Defense Counsel detailed verifiable information regarding past employment, including a list of prior case assignments, to ensure against any conflicts of interest with the case to which detainee’s counsel is currently assigned.

I’m very interested in what “conflicts of interest” they have in mind. Particularly as it relates to al-Nashiri, remember that there was a JAG investigation into whether Kirk Lippold acted improperly in the USS Cole attack (the investigation was designed not to look at larger questions about rules of engagement because they would reflect badly on our allies in Yemen). In addition, one of the CIA’s first uses of a drone to kill someone–with the supposed “accidental” killing of US citizen Kamal Derwish at the same time–was in the killing of Abu Ali al-Harithi. I would imagine the government would want to make sure al-Nashiri’s attorneys are completely ignorant about certain details of both of these events. That said, the restriction may well be about making sure attorneys don’t know too much about other detainees. In any case, they seem to be using “conflict of interest” where they really want to deprive attorneys who “know too much” of serving as counsel.

The Gitmo order also eliminates a caveat included in the DC order. In the rule prohibiting attorneys from sharing certain information with their clients,

Written and oral communications with a detainee, including all incoming legal mail, shall not include information relating to any ongoing or completed military, intelligence, security, or law enforcement operations, investigations, or arrests, or the results of such activities, by any nation or agency or current political events in any country that are not directly related to counsel’s representation of that detainee; or security procedures at GTMO, including names of U.S. Government personnel and the layout of camp facilities, or the status of other detainees, not directly related to counsel’s representation. [my emphasis]

… the Gitmo order eliminates the exception in cases where this information relates to the lawyers representation of the detainee. I’m particularly interested in this given that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed named detainees whom he had implicated under torture, insisting they were innocent. Preventing any discussion of the status of other detainees would prevent such public revelations at a military commission.

The Gitmo order also includes a prohibition on sharing of information between detainees.

No materials, either Legal Mail or non-Legal Mail, are permitted to be exchanged directly between detainees unless authorized by the JTF-GTMO Commander or, after referral, the military judge. If a detainee in a military commission is authorized to proceed pro se, the military judge may authorize special procedures to facilitate the exchange of information necessary for a pro se detainee to prepare a defense. However, all written materials provided to a pro se detainee must be first reviewed by the Privilege Team under the same standards applicable to detainees represented by counsel.

Much of this order–and this restriction in particular–seems to be a response to the John Adams project, which collected photos of detainees torturers and in some case had them exchanging photos among themselves.

Finally, while the DC order ensured that the content both face-to-face and phone conversations between an attorneys and their client could not be monitored, the Gitmo order explicitly permits the recording of phone calls between lawyers and their clients.

Any telephonic access by detainee’s counsel is subject to appropriate security procedures, including contemporaneous monitoring and recording. Any telephonic access between detainee’s counsel and a detainee over either secure or non-secure systems may be subject to appropriate security procedures, including contemporaneous monitoring and recording by the Privilege Team. [my emphasis]

Mind you, as CCR’s suit about the wiretapping of attorney-client conversations shows, they’ve been doing this all along anyway. But now they’re making it explicit.

DOD: Defense Attorneys Can’t Tell Detainees What They Said

/in /by

DOD just issued a new protective order that will cover the military commissions they’re about to roll out. (h/t Carol Rosenberg) I’m still reading the document. But I wanted to highlight this requirement.

Statements of the detainee that detainee’s counsel acquires from classified documents cannot be shared with the detainee absent authorization from the appropriate government agency authorized to declassify the classified information.

In other words, the lawyer of Rahim al-Nashiri–who is reportedly going to be the next detainee charged–can’t tell al-Nashiri what the government alleges he said under torture.

But don’t worry. President Obama assured me these military commissions will deliver real American-style justice.

Update: This is interesting, too:

In the event that classified information enters the public domain, counsel is nonetheless precluded from making private or public statements about the information.

[snip]

Only after classified information has been properly declassified by appropriate authority may formerly classified information in the public domain be the subject of public or private statements from counsel.

We know WikiLeaks still has the Gitmo documents. So some information presumably is going to enter the public domain in the foreseeable future. But DOD is pre-emptively gagging attorneys so they can’t talk about what’s coming.

Update: DOD won’t let attorneys use information they acquire in defending detainees to sue the government for torture.

Protected information shall be used only for purposes directly related to these cases and not for any other litigation or proceeding, except by leave of the military commission or the Convening Authority.