Constitutional Law

Legal Activity on Guantanamo Detainees

A forthcoming book by The New Yorker's Jane Mayer revealed that Red Cross investigators concluded in a secret report that the CIA's interrogation methods for high-level al Qaeda prisoners constituted torture. The book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals, is scheduled for release next week. The New York Times obtained an advance copy. Lawyers for a Canadian detainee at Guantanamo Bay have also accused his interrogators of abuse.

In related news, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Thomas Hogan commented that “the time has come to move these cases forward,” referring to the appeals of more than 200 Guantanamo detainees, many of whom have been held for six years, according to the McClatchy Washington Bureau.

He told the Justice Department to prioritize the lawsuits over all other cases because constitutional rights are at stake, and warned litigants that he would be suspicious of requests for delays.

In the Southern District of New York, Judge Denise Cote dismissed requests for records of National Security Agency intercepts of communications between attorneys representing detainees and their clients, reported the New York Law Journal.

And the ACLU accused the U.S. Treasury Department, which can permit the transfer of money in support of persons designated as “Specially Designated Global Terrorists,” of “foot-dragging” in delaying permission for the ACLU and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers to reimburse criminal defense attorneys for fees and expenses incurred in representing Guantanamo detainees, the Miami Herald reported.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on July 12, 2008 (boomark / email).