Freedom to get back to torturing....

At Guantanamo this past week there was a celebration over the 4th of july weekend- and it seems they celebrated by bringing in one of the bands whose music was used to torture detainees. I guess this makes it official- the gloves are off again.

Read more here.

Some countries actually apologize for their misdeeds....UPDATED

Not the US of course.
But it seems Canada is preparing to apologize and pay a settlment to Omar Khadr for it's role in the detention of Mr. Khadr at Guantanamo for 10 years. The Canadian government also held Mr. Khadr in a Canadian prison for several years and then under house arrest. Khadr was 15 years old when he was captured by the US. There has never been any real evidence that the child was engaged in any combat but of course we here in the US like to blame people without evidence. However, even if he was engaged in combat he was still a child and we actually have rules for dealing with children in combat situations.... Ahhh, but who needs damn rules.

But anyway, not to be outdone, the widow of a man killed at the time Khadr was captured is sueing him to collect any monies he gets in the settlment. They of course wont get any of Khadr's money but that is not stopping them from suing him.

Read more here.

Seems that the deal is done and Mr. Khadr will finally be compensated for Canada's complicity in his torture. Now if only my country would start paying those it tortured.
Read the update from Intercept here.

unknown individuals unintentionally listened to GITMO attorney/client meetings

Well of course both of those things cannot be true- if we don't know who did it how can anyone say it was unintentional. The farce continues....

Read the latest on the surveillance by the military/ spy agencies on attorney/client meetings at Guantanamo here.

Let me pretend to be optimistic....

And the 4th continues....

The 4th in the time of trump....

Happy 4th.... i guess.

From our Friends Down Under at Justinian.....

It's bad enough that Gina Haspel, ex-commandant of the CIA's Thai torture camp, is the agency's new chief (although she is currently at risk of German arrest). Sadly, a leading member of the "dirty dozen" - the torture-counselling lawyers who greased the way for Gina's torture regime - will be general counsel at the Department of Transportation.  

Stephen Bradbury is arguably the most culpable of all George Bush's "torture memo" men.  


Roger Fitch has much more to say about my corrupt government..... read the rest here.

This is not good.....UPDATED

As my friend The Talking Dog points out in this updated post- we cannot look away for even a moment. These are dangerous times in this here U.S. of A .--with the lunatic at the helm.

And speaking of torture......

OK- so I wasn't speaking of torture (this time) but I am now.... It seems we just can't stop doing the torture thing. Now it is Yemen, and it sounds like alot of the same things that went on at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and a miriad of other places that we invaded and tortured men and women.

Read more here.

ILLEGAL RECORDINGS OF ATTORNEY CLIENT MEETINGS APPARENTLY CONTINUE

This has long been a concern to those of us who are representing men at Guantanamo- is the military/government listening to our conversations with our clients? There are very few rights that our clients have- they cannot see the evidence against them (if it is classified); they cannot confront witnesses; they cannot participate in their habeas hearings; even our fucking notes from meeting with our clients are reviewed. But at least we can pick and choose what to put in our notes and we were promised (sigh) that our conversations would not be recorded. In fact, it wasn't just a naive dream that the government would not listen in to our conversations, the promise was recorded in a court order. Ahh, but as I learned during my very first visit to Guantanamo almost eleven years ago to the day- "Court orders don't work here--- we consider those advisory."

So it seems the military apparently decided not to take the "advice" of the judges. Will the judges do anything about this?
Probably not- I mean why would the judges in DC start caring about this sort of thing at this point??

Read more here.

NO NEWS IS GOOD NEWS....

So far nothing has changed at Guantanamo under Trump- except one major change-- no one is leaving.
Carol Rosenberg updates us on her take of things at our Gulag under Trump...

Read about it here.

YOU CAN SAY YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST...

IT JUST FEELS LIKE THAT KIND OF DAY....

PRESIDENTIAL COPIES OF TORTURE REPORT BEING GIVEN BACK TO THE SENATE

It is looking more and more like the full Ttorture Report will never see the light of day... Several copies of the report were in the hands of Obama but of course he never sought the public release of the report. Now the Trump people are giving the copies of the report back to the republican held senate. You can bet those will be locked away forever....
You can read more here.