Judge Rules For Censorship Of Torture Testimony At Guantánamo Military Commission
Source: ENews Park Forest
NEW YORK --(ENEWSPF)--December 12 - The judge presiding over the Guantánamo Bay military commission 9/11 trial has approved the governments request to censor any testimony from the defendants relating to their torture. The American Civil Liberties Union had challenged the governments request, arguing that the American public has a First Amendment right to hear the testimony. The ACLU plans to seek further review of the ruling, which was released today.
Military Judge Col. James Pohl ruled that any statements by the defendants concerning their treatment including torture while in U.S. custody could be kept from the public as classified, and upheld the continued use of a 40-second delay audio feed of the proceedings.
Were profoundly disappointed by the military judges decision, which didnt even address the serious First Amendment issues at stake here. The government wanted to ensure that the American public would never hear the defendants accounts of illegal CIA torture, rendition and detention, and the military judge has gone along with that shameful plan, said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Program. For now, the most important terrorism trial of our time will be organized around judicially approved censorship of the defendants own thoughts, experiences and memories of CIA torture. The decision undermines the governments claim that the military commission system is transparent and deals a grave blow to its legitimacy.
In its request, the government had contended that any statements by the defendants concerning their exposure to the CIAs detention and interrogation program are classified as sources, methods and activities of the U.S. and can be withheld from the public.
Read more: http://www.enewspf.com/latest-news/latest-national/military-casualties/39083-judge-rules-for-censorship-of-torture-testimony-at-guantanamo-military-commission.html
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)enough
(13,259 posts)JoSpits
(17 posts)teddy51
(3,491 posts)They_Live
(3,233 posts)Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)JonLP24
(29,322 posts)The DOJ? Let me guess, they didn't have choice, they had to make the request.
dembotoz
(16,808 posts)i guess we were fooled again
frankly i had hoped for better from us but this is what i would have pretty much expected
forestpath
(3,102 posts)Ash_F
(5,861 posts)John2
(2,730 posts)Judge is not held under the rules of evidence, just because he is in a military proceeding? Why is this not suppression of evidence? So he can obstruct justice? What if this was an American citizen?
cstanleytech
(26,293 posts)I mean sure if a confession or evidence obtained from said confession were being used I could see allowing it in but otherwise it would surely taint the case to much for it to be heard as in impartial manner as possible wouldnt it?
BetsysGhost
(207 posts)very good question indeed.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbors. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did; for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath afflicion enough, that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current moneys, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell that tells me of his affliction, digs out, and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger, I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.
http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/meditation17.php
The Works of John Donne
When one prisoner is tortured, we are all tortured.