NAVY REPORT: Constitution Can Be Curtailed By Destroying Info-Scrubbing Websites-Keeping Secrets

[kpete]

Inside Navy's secret brig
Report: Hanahan facility geared to dodge scrutiny, keep inmates apart
Friday, February 23, 2007
By TONY BARTELME


Officials at the Navy's brig in Hanahan developed elaborate plans to dodge public scrutiny of its operations to detain enemy combatants, plans that include destroying "critical info," scrubbing public Web sites, and warning brig staff about the temptations of "high priced offers from news agencies," a Navy report shows.

The 17-page document also describes how, with relatively short notice, the Naval Consolidated Brig created an expensive prison-within-a-prison, in part to prevent regular inmates from retaliating against the detainees. In this separate facility, a brig official said detainees are accorded protections under the U.S. Constitution, "except where curtailed by higher guidance."

...............

The report said brig officials scrubbed public access documents and Web sites and destroyed "critical info," including information about rosters and internal operations. "Staff training to counter media probes paid dividends on several occasions," Seymour said without further explanation.

The presentation eventually took on the tone of a primer for corrections colleagues on how to dodge reporters and prepare their institutions for enemy combatant missions.

more at:
http://www.charleston.net/assets/webPages/departmental/news/Stories.aspx?section=localnews&tableId=131707&pubDate=2/23/2007

[babylonsister]

1. This makes me ill. Who gave the orders to curtail the Constitution? nt

[jimshoes]

2. I'll throw out a couple of sets of

initials .... AG DC GWB I think that should about do it.

[babylonsister]

3. Hmmm. The usual suspects. This is getting really old. nt

[WiseButAngrySara]

4. This is awful, but as usual, all too expected. Sigh! k(pete)nr! ....n/t

[Kagemusha]

5. They mean that constitutional protections are optional for detainees.

For enemy combattants to be more specific. Their legal position is that detainees aren't entitled to those protections, but the US will grant them anyway, when convenient. And when it's not convenient, the US won't.

[formercia]

6. except that Padilla is a US Citizen.

but I guess that doesn't count in Bush Universe.

[originalpckelly]

8. That's why they charged him with a crime before his case could get to the Supreme Court...

because if it had, then quite frankly I know even Scaliar would have voted in favor of Padilla. It doesn't matter what you've done as an American citizen, there is no way we can do that to someone with citizenship under the US Constitution legally.

[KoKo]

7. Hope this isn't another revelation that goes down the Memory Hole!

kick!

[KoKo]

9. A little more: Cmdr. Flex Plexico says...

Cmdr. Flex Plexico, a Navy spokesman, said Thursday the report "shows the amount of effort and care taken in preparing for the enemy combatant detainment mission supporting the ongoing war on terror." He pointed out that the document stresses "the requirement to treat all detainees humanely, and summarizes the extraordinary steps taken to provide for the safe confinement of enemy combatants while at the same time protecting those responsible for carrying out the detention mission."

Seymour also touched on the legal netherworld the enemy combatants inhabit. "In detaining American citizens, full constitutional rights are afforded except where curtailed by higher guidance or accepted prison practice," the report said.

Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney for the lone detainee in the facility, Ali Saleh al-Marri, said the document shows how the Bush administration is trying to build a separate detention system unbound by the Constitution. "They're saying, 'We'll follow the Constitution, unless the president tells us not to.' That's very significant."

Jacob Hornberger, president of The Future of Freedom, a libertarian think tank near Washington, D.C., added that "the brig officer has it all wrong. The rights enumerated in the Constitution are not privileges bestowed by federal officials subject to discretionary curtailment. Instead, they are inherent, fundamental rights and guarantees that the Constitution expressly prohibits federal officials, including those in the military, from infringing."

Plexico said the term "higher guidance" refers to "guidance higher in the military chain of command than the brig and alludes to rights" that are commonly restricted in detention facilities to ensure order. He added that "even active duty military members in good standing do not have the full benefit of the Constitution, i.e., the First Amendment."

[Richard Steele]

10. K&R