corrente

That didn't take long, did it?

Despite pledging yearly reviews for all prisoners held by the U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Pentagon officials tentatively agreed during a high-level meeting last month to deny that process to some detainees and to keep their existence secret "for intelligence reasons," senior defense officials said Thursday.

Under the proposal, some prisoners would in effect be kept off public records and away from the scrutiny of lawyers and judges.

The meeting on the Guantanamo reviews occurred months after U.S. officials came under harsh criticism by investigators and human rights observers for practices involving "ghost" detainees in Iraq who were kept hidden from inspectors for intelligence purposes.

"I don't know how any of this squares with anything. That's been my problem with this thing from the beginning," he said. "Any time you get the dark side involved, human rights tend to be less of an issue."

One critic said he spoke out about the proposal because he felt that holding detainees "off the books" was unnecessary and potentially illegal. He discounted arguments that the secrecy would withhold news of the captures from other terrorists.

"These Al Qaeda guys are smart," one of the senior defense officials who was critical of the policy said on condition of anonymity. "If Mohamed is no longer on the other end of the phone, they're going to know we've got him."
(via LA Times)

Just like torture. Trashes the rule of law, doesn't work, and it's stupid. Seems like brute force and ignorance (and psyops) is all these people know.