Free Republic

It seems most people are in favor of holding onto our little slice of island paradise, our island retreat from the stress of jihad. Add closing Gitmo to the growing list of harebrained Obama schemes to remake America that are being soundly rejected by the American people... One of the more interesting things to note about President Obama is that ideas that once sounded fairly reasonable to many people no longer sound so good once he gets into the details. Lots of good news in the poll results. If Obama had to spend ten minutes explaining why it was a...

Former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mohammed Jawad is in Afghanistan and will be released into his family's custody today. Jawad was arrested by Afghan police in December 2002 for allegedly throwing a grenade into a vehicle containing two U.S. troops and an Afghan interpreter. In July, a judge granted his writ of habeas corpus; Justice Department officials had 22 days to determine whether they would attempt to try Jawad in a criminal court in the U.S. Despite talk of new evidence, ultimately they didn't file any new charges.

President Obama has approved the creation of an elite team of interrogators to question key terrorism suspects, part of a broader effort to revamp U.S. policy on detention and interrogation, senior administration officials said Sunday. Obama signed off late last week on the unit, named the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group, or HIG. Made up of experts from several intelligence and law enforcement agencies, the interrogation unit will be housed at the FBI but will be overseen by the National Security Council -- shifting the center of gravity away from the CIA and giving the White House direct oversight. (snip) Holder...

The ACLU’s campaign on behalf of Islamic terrorists now includes helping them to identify CIA operatives, who can be targeted for assassination after the liberals who run things set the terrorists free. Lawyers have provided pictures of covert officers to detainees charged with organizing the all-but-forgotten 9/11 attacks.

Security: The ACLU sneakily photographing CIA officers near their homes, then showing the shots to the imprisoned planners of the 9/11 attacks. A fruitcake fantasy? The government is looking into exactly this.When the Washington Post three and a half years ago uncovered the CIA's "black prisons" program, in which enhanced interrogation was used against terrorist detainees to foil future atrocities, we forcefully argued that such secret wartime operations ought never be outed. The Post may have won a Pulitzer for its revelation, but we feel more strongly than ever today. And a new story in that same newspaper gives new...

The Justice Department has questioned attorneys who represent Gitmo detainees about the practice of showing photographs of CIA personnel, including covert officers, to detainees charged with organizing the 9/11 attacks. The investigation reportedly pertains to three lawyers who are said to have shown their clients the photos in an effort to identify CIA officers and contractors who interrogated these terrorists. The photos were taken by researchers hired by a joint project of the ACLU and the National Assocation of Criminal Defense Lawyers. In some cases, the photographers are said to have taken the pictures sureptitiously outside the homes of CIA...

Developing: ACLU and others gathered the names and photographs of CIA operatives and showed them to some detainees at Gitmo. No link yet. Will update when it's published.

So we’re hearing that ACLU attorneys allegedly showed photos of CIA agents to Guantanamo Prison terrorist detainees (Ed Morrissey, “ACLU, Gitmo Lawyers, exposed CIA agent identities to terrorists,” August 21, 2009, http://hotair.com/archives/2009/08/21/aclu-gitmo-lawyers-exposed-cia-agent-identities-to-terrorists/). If they did, it’s one of the most blatant examples of protecting the criminal instead of the innocent. It’s also an act of treason. Morrissey reports that some photographs of CIA agents were shown in front of their homes. It’s hard enough to fathom a hostile world, but to know that Americans who possess a warped version of liberalism are threatening our country’s safety is especially disheartening –...

Justice Dept. Looking Into Whether Attorneys Broke Law at Guantanamo - The Justice Department recently questioned military defense attorneys at Guantanamo Bay about whether photographs of CIA personnel, including covert officers, were unlawfully provided to detainees charged with organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to sources familiar with the investigation... The photos were taken by researchers hired by the John Adams Project, a joint effort of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, to support military counsel at Guantanamo Bay, according to the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of...

Many of the 300 people who attended today's meeting in Standish, Michigan were already against moving Gitmo's detainees there; the rest left with more questions than they came with, according to town hall organizer and long-time Standish resident Dave Munson. I spoke with Mr. Munson this afternoon, after the meeting. He said, "The Department of Defense needs to come up here and be honest with us about how this would effect our community." ...U.S. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, R-Holland and a candidate of Michigan governor in 2010, took the podium first and urged the people to push for transparency. Hoekstra has...

There is going to be a town hall meeting in Standish, Mi. today. Michigan citizens concerned about the controversial federal plan to transfer Guantanamo Bay terrorist detainees to the Standish Maximum Correctional Facility will hold an emergency town hall meeting this Thursday, August 20, at 12:00 noon, in Resurrection of the Lord Church, 423 W. Cedar St., Standish, Michigan. The meeting is open to the public and press.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration plans to transfer six prisoners abroad from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, a U.S. official said on Wednesday, part of the effort to close the controversial facility by early 2010. The detainees include those previously ordered released by U.S. courts or whose release has been approved through the Obama administration's review process, a Justice Department official said, declining to give further details. The administration notified Congress around August 6-7 of the planned moves, starting a 15-day waiting period before the transfers can begin. One, Mohammed Jawad, could be sent back to Afghanistan as...

President Barack Obama plans an all-out push for health care reform legislation after Labor Day — but he is likely to find Congress and the media distracted by a series of thorny national security problems, including Guantanamo and Iran, which are set to come roaring back onto the national agenda.

If you take the time to read House Bill 3200, (Obamacare) you will notice that one of the more common phrases in the bill is limitation on review. That's congress-speak for giving President Obama with "God-Like", non-appealable decision making power over available treatments and their costs. That is, Americans denied treatment cannot sue to get decisions overturned. Of course it doesn't pay to go to Canada for treatment either. Now compare those limitation on review to recent actions by the President. He looking for ways to bring al-Qaeda terrorists to America, so they can get the same criminal rights as...

OTTAWA — Despite losing a second court battle, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appears unwilling to comply with a federal court order demanding his government seek the return of Omar Khadr to Canada. In a 2-1 ruling, the Federal Court of Appeal rejected Harper’s appeal to an earlier decision that demanded his government ask the U.S. to release Khadr from Guantanamo Bay. Describing the ruling as a “split decision” Harper hinted that he would be willing to take up the legal battle to avoid bringing Khadr home further. “The Department of Justice will be examining that decision and obviously I won’t...

AUGUST 13, 2009 Michigan Prison Assessed for Possible Gitmo Transfers STANDISH, Mich. -- Federal officials visited a maximum-security prison in rural Michigan on Thursday to assess its suitability to house Guantanamo Bay inmates. Representatives of the Defense, Justice and Homeland Security departments toured the prison in Standish, 145 miles north of Detroit. The Standish prison and a military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., are being considered to house the detainees if the prison in Cuba is closed by 2010, as ordered by President Barack Obama. The Guantanamo Bay facility houses 229 suspected al Qaeda, Taliban and foreign fighters. Some locals...

STANDISH, Mich. -- Federal officials visited a maximum-security prison in rural Michigan on Thursday to assess its suitability to house Guantanamo Bay inmates. Representatives of the Defense, Justice and Homeland Security departments toured the prison in Standish, 145 miles north of Detroit. The Standish prison and a military penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., are being considered to house the detainees if the prison in Cuba is closed by 2010, as ordered by President Barack Obama. The Guantanamo Bay facility houses 229 suspected al Qaeda, Taliban and foreign fighters. Some locals favor bringing the detainees to Standish if necessary to keep...

GENEVA (Reuters) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has won improvements in conditions and treatment of U.S.-held terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay by dogged but confidential scrutiny, its president said Tuesday. Jakob Kellenberger-Wanker, also welcomed the Obama administration's stated support for the pact's laying down of rules for treatment of prisoners and civilians in armed conflict. The detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, which opened after the deadly September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, became a symbol of detainee abuse and detention without charge under the previous administration of George W. Bush. "If you take the...

As a former Marine, I know that the men and women of our armed forces, including those at Fort Leavenworth, are more than capable of securing these terrorists. In fact, they already secure them very well at Guantanamo. The real threat lies beyond the terrorists themselves. For places like Leavenworth, there is a virtual top 10 list of external threats ... 2. Security experts estimate that Fort Leavenworth would need to acquire 2,000 privately owned acres of land by eminent domain to establish a stand-off zone around the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks, which is situated near the perimeter. Imagine the lawsuits,...

The Obama administration is fighting on multiple fronts - in courts in San Francisco, Washington, D.C. and London - to keep an official veil of secrecy over the treatment of a former prisoner who says he was tortured at Guantanamo Bay. The administration has asked a federal appeals court in San Francisco to reconsider its ruling allowing Binyam Mohamed and four other former or current prisoners to sue a Bay Area company for allegedly flying them to overseas torture chambers for the CIA. Obama administration lawyers also argued that Mohamed's attorneys had violated secrecy procedures by writing a letter to...