detainees

A FOIA request from the ACLU has uncovered some really disturbing facts of inmate deaths inside our immigration jails:

As one man lay dying of head injuries suffered in a New Jersey immigration jail in 2007, for example, a spokesman for the federal agency told a reporter that he could learn nothing about the case from government authorities. In fact, the records show, the spokesman had alerted those officials to the reporter’s inquiry, and they conferred at length about sending the man back to Africa to avoid embarrassing publicity.

In another case that year, investigators from the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that unbearable, untreated pain had been a significant factor in the suicide of a 22-year-old detainee at the Bergen County Jail in New Jersey, and that the medical unit was so poorly run that other detainees were at risk.

The investigation found that jail medical personnel had falsified a medication log to show that the detainee, a Salvadoran named Nery Romero, had been given Motrin. The fake entry was easy to detect: When the drug was supposedly administered, Mr. Romero was already dead.

Sick. It’s time to get rid of this screwed up system and put in place real immigration reform.

While talking about the detainees coming here to stand trial, Bill O’Reilly declared “I don’t care about the Constitution!” Finally we hear some truthfulness come from the lips of Bill O.

Very, very interesting:

A South Texas grand jury has indicted Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy County's federal detention centers.

The indictment criticizes Cheney's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees by working through the prison companies.

Gonzales is accused of using his position while in office to stop an investigation into abuses at the federal detention centers.

Sadly I don’t see this going anywhere. Justice is a joke in the U.S.

What is camp 7? The AP has uncovered that:

Somewhere amid the cactus-studded hills on this sprawling Navy base,
separate from the cells where hundreds of men suspected of links to
al-Qaida and the Taliban have been locked up for years, is a place even
more closely guarded — a jailhouse so protected that its very location
is top secret.

For the first time, the top commander of detention operations at
Guantanamo has confirmed the existence of the mysterious Camp 7. In an
interview with The Associated Press, Rear Adm. Mark Buzby also provided
a few details about the maximum-security lockup.

Guantanamo commanders said Camp 7 is for key alleged al-Qaida
members, who must be kept apart from other prisoners to prevent them
from retaliating against long-term detainees who have talked to
interrogators. They also want the location kept secret for fear of
terrorist attack.

Yes so we have Gitmo, and then we have the super-secret Gitmo. I bet the people in Camp 7 dream of days of only facing water boarding.

Since they don't have the enjoyment of watching past episodes of "Waterboarding with Mousawi", I guess they had to find new ways to pass the time down there:

The US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has been caught conducting covert propaganda attacks on the internet. The attacks, exposed this week in a report by the government transparency group Wikileaks, include deleting detainee ID numbers from Wikipedia last month, the systematic posting of unattributed "self praise" comments on news organization web sites in response to negative press, boosting pro-Guantanamo stories on the internet news site Digg and even modifying Fidel Castro's encyclopedia article to describe the Cuban president as "an admitted transexual" [sic].

Shayana Kadidal, Managing Attorney of the Center for Constitutional Rights Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative, said in response to the report:

"The military's efforts to alter the record by vandalizing Wikipedia are of a piece with the amateurism of their other public relations efforts: their ridiculous claims that released detainees who criticize the United States in the media have 'returned to the battlefield,'.

So Castro is a trans-sexual. Wow! I guess that is better than being a communist - you know the kind of person/government that would falsify information for the purpose of misleading it's people. Yeah we can leave that title to the people at GITMO doing this crap.

Remember the Republican controlled Congress spent 1/10th the time investigating Abu Gharib as they did investigating Bill Clinton's Christmas Card list. Here is why that is such a crime:

Outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized the mistreatment of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, the prison's former U.S. commander said in an interview on Saturday.

Former U.S. Army Brigadier General Janis Karpinski told Spain's El Pais newspaper she had seen a letter apparently signed by Rumsfeld which allowed civilian contractors to use techniques such as sleep deprivation during interrogation.

Karpinski, who ran the prison until early 2004, said she saw a memorandum signed by Rumsfeld detailing the use of harsh interrogation methods.

"The handwritten signature was above his printed name and in the same handwriting in the margin was written: "Make sure this is accomplished,"" she told Saturday's El Pais.

Karpinski was made to be the fall guy (girl) in the entire scandal and no one would listen to her. Now she is going to countries where people will listen.

It is amazing how we hear that we should support our troops, yet the people who constantly make that demand are the ones who refuse to listen to the troops when they address problems like this. Almost every single general who has served in Iraq and left service during that time has raised serious complaints, but Bush don't listen to them. Instead he chooses to listen to the now fired Donald Rumsfeld.

This is amazing. During an exchange on Capital Hill today between Senator Patrick Leahy and Steven Bradbury, legal council for the Department of Justice, Bradbury said that "the President is always right". Here is the transcript compliments of Raw Story:

MR. BRADBURY: Well, Senator, I think -- as I said in my testimony, obviously the court's decision does not call into question our ability to hold detainees --

LEAHY: Not my question. The president said very specifically -- and he said it to our European allies -- he was waiting for the Supreme Court decision and that would tell him whether he was supposed to close Guantanamo or not. After, he said it upheld his position on Guantanamo. In effect, it actually said neither. Where did he get that impression?

BRADBURY: Well --

LEAHY: The president's not a lawyer. You are. The Justice Department advised him. Did you give him such a cockamamie idea or what?

BRADBURY: Well, I try not to give anybody cockamamie ideas, and I --

LEAHY: Well, where'd he get the idea?

BRADBURY: Obviously -- the Hamdan decision, Senator, does implicitly recognize that we're in a war, that the president's war powers were triggered by the attacks on the country, and that law of war paradigm applies. That's what the whole -- the whole case was about --

LEAHY: I don't think the president was talking about the nuances of the law of war paradigm. He was saying that this was going to tell him whether he could keep Guantanamo open or not. Afterward, he said it said he could.

BRADBURY: Well, it's --

LEAHY: Was the president right or was he wrong?

BRADBURY: It's under the Law of War that we --

LEAHY: Was the president right or wrong?

BRADBURY: -- the president is always right, Senator.