Gitmo Update

Remember the GITMO trials?  KSM and cohorts?  The families of the victims surely do; the rest of America, not so much.

They are trying to resume them.  In the process an interesting revelation was recently leaked:

"I said, Mr Guard, is that a listening device, and he said, 'Of course not'," she said. "Well, guess what, judge? It's a listening device". The prison's lawyer, Captain Thomas Welsh, told the court he discovered the room was fitted with hidden microphones early last year and reported it to the then warden, Colonel Donnie Thomas, to seek assurances that meetings between the accused and their lawyers were not being spied on.

Bogdan said he was not informed when he took over. He told the court that the FBI was in control of the room until 2008 and that he has since discovered that the bugs were accidentally disconnected in October during renovations but then secretly reconnected by an unnamed intelligence service two months later, suggesting they were still in use.

And by an 'unnamed intelligence service' we can assume it wasn't Lichtenstein's.  Since it was presumably restarted in December 2012 that also means Cheney didn't order it.

So unless one of our agencies has gone rogue that means the bug order came from up the chain of command at some high level position.  Was someone trying to sabotage the proceedings?  Force the trials into an Article III court?  Undermine the entire tribunal process? 

Surely such planners would have to consider that if KSM were to be acquitted in such a court he wouldn't be given his belongings and 100 bucks and released into lower Manhattan, it would be back to prison in leg irons.  How would that make America look like a beacon of justice? 

Or maybe some are worried about the influence KSM might still have even after 10 years in jail.  The Blind Sheikh managed to get messages to his followers back in Egypt (kill all the infidels, etc) after being locked up for a few years and KSM's erstwhile nephew Ramzi Yousef was able to successfully communicate in code with Uncle Khalid while sitting in a New York City lockup (under the watchful eye of the FBI).

Good grief, we can't even trust Richard Clarke to keep the lid on a secret mole inserted into AQ in Yemen so the idea terrorists or their pro bono lawyers can be trusted not to babble or pass along secrets is fantasy.  Which in part explains the listening devices.  But again, revealing the devices undercuts the tribunals, which would open the door for more leaks.   Perhaps the solution is a 'prison break' and a well-positioned drone. After all, these guys aren't even citizens.

MORE  2/18/13

Speaking of Yousef, he's back in the news:

"I request an immediate end to my solitary confinement and ask to be in a unit in an open prison environment where inmates are allowed outside their cells for no less than 14 hours a day," he wrote the warden, according to confidential government records obtained by The Times. "I have been in solitary confinement in the U.S. since Feb. 8, 1995, with no end in sight.... I further ask not to be in handcuffs or leg irons when moved outside my cell."

Aww, the poor thing.  The traumatized terrorist.  Just a few years ago Basit Karim (supposedly his real name) claimed to have concerted to Christianity.   Of course letting this guy mingle is a bad idea based on past history--read the above link in the main post by Chris Carson if you don't believe it.  But this story should go towards the larger question of allowing the most dangerous terrorists have any kind of freedoms.  In one sense his current existence might be a harsher punishment than a martyr's death, so long as the authorities can keep him from contacting the outside world. 

By the way, this isn't the first time he has sued--he filed against the Bureau of Prisons back in 1998 for similar treatment:

On September 11, 1998, Yousef sued the Bureau of Prisons over what he called "Draconian" restrictions imposed on him in Colorado.

Wow, what a weird, wild coincidence. And surely the signature date on his Iraqi passport was also a coincidence.  If you believe in those things.