Q and A on what's next for Guantanamo Bay

By MATT APUZZO

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON -- Last week the Supreme Court ruled that Guantanamo Bay detainees could challenge their detention in federal court. Now it's up to the federal judges to figure out how that will work.

Judge Royce C. Lamberth, the chief judge of Washington's federal courthouse, met behind closed doors Wednesday with the Justice Department and lawyers for the detainees to hear thoughts on how to move the estimated 200 cases through the system.

But it won't be easy.

Here are some of the questions about the process, about the hurdles that stand in their way, and what the solutions might be.

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Q: What are these cases, criminal trials?

A: No. They are known as petitions for habeas corpus. Basically, the detainees say the government has no right to keep them locked up. The Supreme Court has generally upheld the government's right to hold enemy combatants. Government lawyers must present evidence on a case-by-case basis to persuade a judge that each prisoner is being held lawfully.

Q: Why is this so complicated? The cases have already been assigned to judges and have been sitting on the court docket for months and years. Can't they just start holding hearings?

A: No. As the legal fight over Guantanamo Bay played out over the past several years, the cases in Washington have become muddled. Officials believe that, of the 500 or so pending petitions, most are duplicates and there only about 200 detainees. That means some detainees likely have cases pending before multiple judges. The cases can't even begin until people figure out what cases are out there. Plus there are many issues to work out on how the court will handle all the classified evidence needed to consider these cases.

Q: Why is that such a big deal? Courts hear cases involving classified evidence all the time.

A: True, but never in this volume. More law clerks would need to receive security clearance, a process that takes time. The court will need to figure out how it will store the classified information, which likely exceeds its current secure storage capacity. There are strict restrictions on computers that hold classified information, so new computers would probably need to be purchased.

Q: How is this going to work logistically? Will the judges go to Guantanamo Bay? Will the detainees come to Washington?

A: For now, the likeliest solution involves a secure, closed-circuit television feed from Guantanamo Bay to Washington. Court officials don't believe the judges have the authority to sit at Guantanamo Bay or to order detainees transferred onto U.S. soil. Attorneys could argue that latter point, but doing so would probably slow the process as the matter is argued.

Q: Speaking of the process, how long is this going to take?

A: It won't be quick, but the court is considering steps to speed it up. The judges will meet in the next week or so to consider putting one judge in charge of settling preliminary disputes for all the cases. That would create a standard process that could speed things along. It's also possible that some detainees, such as the Chinese Muslims the government has been trying to find a home for, could be grouped together because their cases are so similar. Some attorneys are skeptical of those ideas, though, and want each case to be heard on its own from start to finish.

Q: So what happens now?

A: Lamberth will meet with the attorneys again next week to see what common ground can be reached on procedural and security issues. Then he'll meet with the judges. It's too soon to say when the first hearings will begin.

an OPED on Closed Door Sessions: Yankton SD

Point Of View Open Government, Closed Doors

By: Brian J. Hunhoff
Press & Dakotan

Democracy dies behind closed doors.

I need to get a T-shirt with that phrase emblazoned across the chest in bold letters, because it is one of my all-time favorite quotes.

Those five eloquent words were spoken a few years ago by a wise federal judge. He referred to secret deportation hearings held in the United States after the 9/11 attacks. However, his comment could also be applied to the thousands of secret government meetings (closed-door executive sessions, closed legislative caucuses, etc.) held throughout South Dakota and the United States every year.

As a journalist for 20 years and a county commissioner for 10 years, I observed, first-hand, both sides of the ongoing push-pull between the media and local government over closed-door "public" meetings.

All too often, elected officials look for loopholes or excuses to take a discussion behind closed doors. They might argue it's a sensitive personnel matter, or pending litigation, or a delicate contract negotiation. The law allows some of those issues to be discussed in closed session, but that does not mean it's always mandatory or necessary to shut the public out of such deliberations. They are generally over-used.

There are elected boards in South Dakota that have three or four executive sessions in a single meeting. Some schedule executive sessions as a regular agenda item. Many have executive sessions that last longer than the regular business agenda.

Is it possible many of our public officials do not trust themselves to discuss some issues appropriately? They should. If elected officials can choose their words carefully, there are very few things that cannot be discussed in open session.

Boards and commissions have the discretion to decide when an executive session is absolutely necessary, but they often opt for secrecy. In some cases, public officials preach the importance of open government on the campaign trail, but do not practice it consistently in office. As the old saying goes, there is often a canyon between a politician's words and actions. We know which echo louder over time.

Consistency also suffers when commissions and boards begin dealing with an issue in open meetings, and later take it behind closed doors if the topic becomes more controversial. During my 10 years on the county board, I voted against and sat out executive sessions I believed were improper, unnecessary or inconsistent. Not once did I ever have a constituent criticize me for doing this.

One commissioner refusing to enter a secret meeting is a statement. All five commissioners deciding not to hold a scheduled secret meeting is progress. I'll take progress any day, although the former will sometimes drive the latter.

Many communities have local legends about elected boards that get together outside of their chambers. That is illegal if there is a quorum and if there is any discussion of their city, county or school issues.

In the early 1980s, a majority of our nine-member Yankton City Commission would gather at a Main Street watering hole after meetings. Those sessions sometimes lasted longer than the actual commission meetings that preceded them.

Our five-member Yankton County Commission had a similar routine. After Tuesday morning meetings, three of them (that's a quorum) often lunched together at a local cafe.

We would be naive to believe city business was never discussed in that downtown bar on Monday nights, and county business was never discussed during Tuesday noon lunches at the cafes. Early in my time as a county commissioner, I went along on a couple of those lunch breaks. I quickly realized it was all too easy for our conversation to stray to that morning's meeting.

A few years ago, when moving items out of our old Courthouse, we came across notes from a joint meeting of Yankton's county commissioners and some of the city commissioners in the early 1970s at a popular steakhouse. It was not a public meeting, but it was soon announced in the Yankton newspaper that the two entities brokered an agreement that night to build a joint city/county law enforcement center and jail.

It was an innovative and worthy project, but the "meeting" and subsequent decision should have been conducted in a community setting where the general public could hear the discussion between members of those two elected bodies.

Deals made in the proverbial smoke-filled rooms surely occurred in many communities, but I am hopeful they happen less frequently in this day and age.

People are becoming more sophisticated about open government issues. More and more, I believe our neighbors understand that when reporters are denied access to a meeting, the public as a whole is being kept in the dark, as well.

Some will argue that a negotiating session between two government entities is likely to be more productive done in private. That cuts to the heart of the issue because it does not give our citizens enough credit. Officials need to have faith that a public wise enough to elect them is also wise enough to fairly judge their deliberations.

We have ample room for improvement on the national, state and local levels. I hear journalists from other states say "their" state has the worst open government law or the worst open government history, but South Dakota is no virgin on these fronts. This is the state that awarded hundreds of secret pardons. This is a state where cities, counties and schools hold thousands of secret meetings each year. This is a state where our Legislature holds secret meetings each day before the afternoon session is called to order.

Dark clouds remain in the skies of open government, but sunshine is seeping in. The Sioux Falls Argus Leader gave the 2007 State Legislature a "C" on open government issues. That grade won't get our state legislators on the honor roll, but there are worse marks to be had. Our state senators and representatives earned some of those in past sessions.

Open, transparent government is good government. Taxpayers and citizens deserve to know how their elected officials arrive at their decisions. The public's business should be conducted in public.

And Democracy dies behind closed doors.

This is Sunshine Week - a week when we are called to celebrate and support the Democratic concept of open government. It is not always easy or popular, but this is an honorable battle worth fighting. I'll end this essay with a quote from an editorial that appeared in the County Courier of Enosburg, Vermont:

"If we want sunshine on our government,

we must be willing to stand up in the dark and demand it."

Brian Hunhoff was a Yankton County commissioner for 10 years. He currently serves as the Yankton County Register of Deeds. He is the 2005 winner of the South Dakota Newspaper Association's Eagle Award, which recognizes extraordinary efforts in guaranteeing and promoting open government.

Torturegate AND - Sex HAS diverted our attention this week

There were more important things than the Spitzer spectacle going on last week

By ERIC MARGOLIS

There are few more riveting spectacles than the public exposure and humiliation of a major hypocrite. So it was with New York State's fallen governor, Eliot Spitzer.

As a former prosecutor Spitzer relentlessly crusaded against financial, political and moral malefactors, including those involved in prostitution cases. Some saw him as a future presidential candidate.

Watching this modern Savonarola exposed dallying with outrageously priced call girls suggests there is indeed natural justice -- except, of course, for the humiliation inflicted on his brave, loyal wife.

U.S. media has overflowed with silly commentary by feminists and shrinks about "why did he do it." He did it because he was a typical man, genetically programmed to lust after multiple sexual partners. As the old saying goes, if a man isn't thinking about sex, his mind is wandering.

Too many Americans still have adolescent views of sex and marriage.

Europeans, by contrast, shrug off men's need to stray as normal and acceptable, provided it is done discreetly. Powerful, busy men such as Spitzer who have no time to court and romance women resort to prostitutes for simple physical release.

However ruthless, self-serving and hypocritical Spitzer was about prostitution, he was doing one good thing: Going after Wall Street's crooks and fraudsters largely responsible for the current financial crisis.

Spitzer's downfall this week unfortunately obscured two far more important events.

SADDAM AND AL-QAIDA

First, the White House refused to release an exhaustive Pentagon review of 600,000 Iraqi documents that found no evidence that Saddam Hussein had any links with al-Qaida.

This al-Qaida connection was the second big lie propagated by the Bush White House to justify invading Iraq. So successfully was it spread by the administration and tame media, that on the eve of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, 80% of Americans blamed Saddam for 9/11.

A small, al-Qaida affiliate appeared in Iraq only as a result of the U.S. invasion. But most misled Americans still believe they are fighting Osama bin Laden's men in Iraq. No wonder the White House is trying to suppress the Pentagon study.

Spitzer's pillorying also masked another profoundly shameful act. On Tuesday, 188 Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to uphold President George Bush's veto of a Democratic-sponsored bill to ban the CIA from using torture to interrogate enemy detainees. Their party-line vote was strong enough to prevent the 225 Democrats who voted to overturn the president's veto from achieving the required two-thirds majority.

Republicans now have become the party of torture. Never has the Grand Old Party sunk so low. Those great Republicans, Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan, must be weeping in their graves.

Among tortures America now routinely inflicts on captives: Water torture, near suffocation, beatings, confinement in cramped positions, sleep and sensory deprivation, freezing rooms, ear-splitting noise, mock executions, psychotropic drugs, food laced with excrement and, of course, water-boarding.

CONDONING TORTURE

The White House and Republicans claim none of these is really torture. Republicans just love euphemisms. These tortures are merely "enhanced interrogation." Overthrowing foreign governments is "regime change;" assassination, "taking them out." George Orwell warned such double-talk was the hallmark of totalitarian regimes. Even the KGB did not use all these tortures.

The president and his party are violating American and international law, and UN agreements against torture.

Their sanction of torture, and its apotheosis in the Guantanamo gulag, have disgraced America's name around the globe and will continue to haunt the United States for decades to come. Captured American soldiers now know what to expect.

Presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John McCain -- the latter a torture victim -- all properly condemn the White House for promoting torture. But McCain, who should know better, fudges, saying he won't restrict the CIA to interrogations in the Army Field Manual, which bans most forms of real torture. That is ominous.

The Spitzer follies should not distract us from the Bush administration's continuing violations of American and international law, and the values America used to hold dear. Nor ally Ottawa's slide in the same illegal direction.


Posted by CRIMES AND CORRUPTION OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS mparent7777 Marc Parent CCNWON at 2:46 PM
Labels: Bush, governor, New York, Orwellian, President 2008, scandal, totalitarianism

BREAKING: WHAT REALLY HAPPENED in the closed door session

Yes, it is so dramatic that members of the US CONgress sworn to secrecy are leaking what is about to take place. Here are links and leaked information. Pass this information on as quickly as you can!!

read more | digg story

The number for the Capital Hill switchboard is 202-224-3121.

Start CALLING!! (Even if your phone is tapped and you won't be able to sue for the consequences of that .. )

Last real MSM story on this is: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/3/14/worldupdates/
2008-03-14T025602Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-324733-1&sec=Worldupdates