Posted on 01/23/2006 8:38:28 PM PST by quantim
NEW YORK - A federal judge ruled Monday that the Defense Department must release the identities of hundreds of Guantanamo Bay detainees to The Associated Press.
U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff told the government to provide the information in the form of unredacted copies of transcripts and documents related to 558 military hearings in which detainees were permitted to challenge their incarcerations.
Most of the hundreds of prisoners at the U.S. prison in Cuba have been held since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks without being charged or publicly identified, which has troubled human rights groups.
The AP filed its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking the documents last year. The government then turned over the transcripts of 558 tribunals but redacted facts about each detainee's identity.
The judge gave the government until Wednesday to decide whether to appeal to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and ask him to suspend his order.
Earlier this month, the judge rejected government arguments that the detainees' names should be kept secret to protect their privacy, but gave the government one last chance to change his mind.
In response, the government argued that releasing the identities could subject the families, friends and associates of the detainees to embarrassment and retaliation.
In a written ruling Monday, the judge said he found that argument unconvincing. He said family members and the others "never had any reasonable expectation" of anonymity.
Many of the detainees were captured in Afghanistan, and are there, the Persian Gulf, Russia and other countries.
A spokeswoman for federal prosecutors, Heather Tasker, said the government had not seen the ruling and had no response.
AP attorney David A. Schulz said he expected the government to appeal.
"The judge has rejected the Defense Department's effort to use the privacy interests of detainees to prevent the public from learning information about the actions taken at Guantanamo Bay," he said.
Last year, the judge ordered the government to ask each detainee whether he or she wanted personal identifying information to be turned over to the AP as part of the lawsuit.
Of 317 detainees who received the form, 63 said yes, 17 said no, 35 returned the form without answering and 202 declined to return the form.
The judge said none of the detainees, not even the 17 who said they did not want their identities exposed, had a reasonable expectation of privacy during the tribunals.
The enemy within. Hang him high when the time comes.
Move them to the judge's house...or better yet, move the judge to Club Gitmo. Traitor.
That judge is Mohammed ATTA resurrected.
This is the face of the enemy.
His name is Donald Newhouse, billionaire democrat and managing director of the Associated Press, a leftist propaganda organ comitted to undermining the GOP at any cost, including the security of the nation.
I demand the release of the address of the Alpha Hotel US judge in question
This jerk also held the death penalty to be unconstitutional.
http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/weekly/aa070102b.htm
He's a friggin' activist judge who should be impeached, removed, and detained as a traitor.
unredacted copies???
Ummmm ... can we get the same for the Barrett Report too???
The schmuck was appointed to the bench by Clinton in 1996.
The face of HATE and TREASON.
Traitor is a more suitable adjective.
Monday, 1 July, 2002
The ruling by Judge Jed S. Rakoff is the first to declare the current federal death penalty unconstitutional.
Conflict of Interest
In September of last year, Judge Rakoff became embroiled in an ethics debate, when he refused to recuse himself from a lawsuit against Texaco Inc. brought by a group of Ecuadorean Indians who accused the oil company of polluting their land in the Amazon rain forest. Lawyers for the Indians said Judge Rakoff had attended an expenses-paid seminar in 1998 in Montana at which a former chairman of Texaco spoke.
Other
He also co-wrote the Corporate Sentencing Guidelines that let Enron and such get off so easy.
This judge needs to be impeached, tried and convicted of treason, and executed.
The Judicial Branch has no authority in this matter. All jurists know this. Any activity to the contrary by a judge is classic treason.
I used that term in posts # 3 and # 7. Schmuck fits too and won't get me banned from FR like the first words that came to mind.
Yes, and those black robes in this context are eerily reminiscent of a:
.
Since this guy is not wearing a uniform with rank on the shoulders, I don't think his opinion is squat. This is a military issue, not one involving law enforcement.
He has no business being involved in this at all - he needs to get back to traffic court.
Tell him, on appeal, to go to Hell.
This ruling will be automatically appealed, right?
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