USA - Goodbye Habeas Corpus

[Nagognog2]

Hearsay could be used in trials of detainees
Congress to eye Pentagon rules
|January 19, 2007

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon's rules for upcoming detainee trials would allow terrorism suspects to be convicted and perhaps executed using hearsay evidence and some coerced testimony.

The rules are fair, said the Pentagon, which released them yesterday in a manual for the expected trials. However, they could spark a new confrontation between the Bush administration and the Democratic-led Congress over treatment of terror suspects.

According to the 238-page manual, a detainee's lawyer could not reveal classified evidence in the person's defense until the government had a chance to review it. Suspects would be allowed to view summaries of classified evidence, not the material itself.

The new regulations are based on a law passed last fall by Congress restoring President Bush's plans to have special military commissions try terror-war prisoners. Those commissions had been struck down earlier in the year by the Supreme Court.

At a Pentagon briefing, Dan Dell'Orto, deputy to the Defense Department's top counsel, said the new rules will "afford all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized people."

Representative Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he planned to scrutinize the manual to ensure that it does not "run afoul" of the Constitution.

"I have not yet seen evidence that the process by which these rules were built or their substance addresses all the questions left open by the legislation," Skelton said.

Officials suggest that with the evidence they have now, they could eventually charge 60 to 80 detainees, said Brigadier General Thomas Hemingway, legal adviser to the Pentagon's office on commissions.

The Defense Department is currently planning trials for at least 10.

There are almost 400 people suspected of ties to Al Qaeda and the Taliban being held at the military's prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. About 380 others have been released since the facility was opened five years ago.

Last September, Congress -- then led by Republicans -- sent Bush a new law granting wide latitude in interrogating and detaining captured enemy combatants. The legislation prohibited some abuses of detainees, including mutilation and rape, but granted the president leeway to decide which interrogation techniques were permissible.

Passage of the bill, which was backed by the White House, followed more than three months of debate about the administration's interrogation policies.

In outlining the maximum punishment for various acts, the new manual includes the death penalty for people convicted of spying or taking part in a "conspiracy or joint enterprise" that kills someone. The maximum penalty for aiding the enemy -- such as providing ammunition or money -- is lifetime imprisonment.

As required by law, the manual prohibits the use of statements obtained through torture and "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment" as prohibited by the Constitution. It allows some evidence obtained through coercive interrogation techniques if obtained before Dec. 30, 2005, and deemed reliable by a judge.

The Detainee Treatment Act, separate legislation championed in 2005 by Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, prohibited the use of cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of military and CIA prisoners.

Congress and the White House agreed last year that hearsay -- a witness quoting someone else -- can be allowed as evidence if a judge rules the testimony is reliable. According to the manual, this is necessary because witnesses -- such as military personnel or foreigners -- may not be available to testify.

The Pentagon's Dell'Orto said that since both sides of the case can admit hearsay evidence, that "levels the playing field."

The Pentagon manual is aimed at ensuring that enemy combatants -- the Bush administration's term for many of the terrorism suspects captured on the battlefield -- "are prosecuted before regularly constituted courts affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized by civilized people," according to the document.

Under the rules, the accused will be allowed to know about all evidence that is provided in the trial, Dell'Orto said. They will not be allowed to see classified material, but will be given an unclassified substitute, with the judge first determining whether the summary represents the classified material.

[Alicia]

In other words they want to free up some space.

[Riconoen {UGC}]

I hereby name this country United Stalinist America.

[Woodman]

In a small dark room, a dim light bulb swings from a wire connected to a tarnished rim on the ceiling; single door, the only means of entry or exit.

A small fold-up table is positioned in the center of the room where Nagognog2 sits naked and shivering on a rickety wooden stool with his hands cuffed behind his back and a black window (sinister sister to the two way mirror) positioned behind him.

Across the table, an interrogating agent from the Department of Homeland Security leans back in his office-style armchair, sitting slightly askew with a cigarette in his hand as fresh steam wafts skyward from a cup of hot coffee on the table in front of him
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Homeland Security Nazi: Mr. Nagognog2, as a senior member of an online “discussion group” that involves illegal drugs, your online activities give us enough probable cause to monitor your telephone conversations under provisions of the Patriot Act.
Transcripts from those conversations reveal that you recently acquired some high quality fission material.

Nagognog2: You might as well be speaking in Chinese because I have NO IDEA what you are talking about.

Homeland Security Nazi: Now, Mr. Nagognog, we both know that there’s only one reason a scumbag like you would want to get a hold of this kind of material.
We can do this the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. So, why don’t you just make things easy on yourself? Tell us where it is, and help us identify your contacts.

Nagognog2: I’m TELLING you, you’ve got the wrong guy! I don’t have ANY fission material. I never HAD had any fission material, and as I told you before, I don’t know what your talking about.

Where do you people get such silly information, anyway? You make me embarrassed to pay my taxes knowing that this is the kind of idiocy that I’m subsidizing.

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The interrogator lets loose with a long sigh and signals toward the blackened window on the wall behind Nagognog2.

Soon, a young man enters the room carrying a bucket of water, two large sponges and a pair of jumper cables.

The interrogator takes the young man aside and whispers in his ear...
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Homeland Security Nazi: I can already tell, this guy is going to give us a hard time. We’re going to need use the entire twelve-volt array on this one.
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Two days later, and 6,700 miles away, in an underground research facility in Langley Virginia, a team of lab-tech specialists briefs a pair of intelligence analysts about materials intercepted on their way to a Vermont address...
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CIA Lab Tech: We've taken multiple samples of the tube material, and they all register graphite composition. Even X-ray shows structural consistency, but no measurable radiation.

The string appears to be made from nylon, and the rotating cylindrical devise leads us to believe that it may indeed have been manufactured for a non-nuclear purpose.

The package was sent from a Nebraska address at 3600 Highway 30 E, Kearney, zip code 68847.

Basically, it looks like high quality fishin' material.

Someone better notify our interrogation team in Qatar.
This guy is going to be pissed!