Interested in the Gitmo Playbook?

Go here:

http://www.abajournal.com/news/now_on_internet_gitmo_prison_manual/

Quoting the American Bar Association website:

The manual appears to reveal information that has previously been intentionally withheld. For example, it "indicates some prisoners were designated as off-limits to visitors from the International Committee of the Red Cross, something the military has repeatedly denied," the British news agency writes.

It also addresses the minutia of military prison management. Styrofoam cups, for instance, must be confiscated if prisoners have written on them, apparently because they may then be a vehicle for passing forbidden notes from one prisoner to another. Meanwhile, "(i)f the cup is damaged or destroyed, the detainee will be disciplined for destruction of government property," the manual states.

Just watched a film titled *GITMO*, I can't believe the US has this remote prison. A great quote from the movie:
Why do we need a prison on the other side of the law?

News items I did not know about:

10/5/07 The chief military prosecutor for the Guantanamo Bay war tribunals has resigned, apparently over a lack of prosecutorial discretion.

11/1/07 A private practitioner from Canada who represents a Guantanamo Bay detainee held since the age of 15 has reportedly been banned by his military co-counsel from the client's upcoming arraignment at a military tribunal.

Because of a dispute with co-counsel selected by the Pentagon about how best to handle the defense of Omar Khadr, a Canadian-born Muslim who is now 21, attorney Dennis Edney says he has been told he cannot attend next week's arraignment, according to the Associated Press.

11/8/07 A Marine Corps lawyer has been told by his superiors that he may not testify before Congress about his decision to abandon a Guantanamo prosecution because of his concerns that a high-level detainee was tortured.

Lt. Col. V. Stuart Couch, a former Guantanamo prosecutor who is now a military judge, had decided he could not prosecute a suspected al-Qaida terrorist because believed the detainee's incriminating statements were improperly obtained, the Wall Street Journal reports (sub. req.). The detainee, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, was allegedly subjected to beatings, death threats, and threats against his mother.

Why indeed....