This editorial in the IHT should give everyone pause for thought as the Bush Administration goes from bad to worse in seeking to deny even the most basic tenets of justice and fairness to those imprisoned, most without any charges, at Guantanamo Bay.
"It can be hard to tell whom the Bush administration considers more of an enemy at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp: the prisoners or the lawyers.
William Glaberson reported in the International Herald Tribune on Friday that the Justice Department had asked a federal appeals court to remove some of the last shreds of legal representation available to the prisoners.
Under current rules, the mail between lawyers and inmates at Guantánamo Bay is checked for contraband, but not read. The lawyers are also allowed to review classified evidence against their clients, and there is no limit on the number of visits they can make.
The government wants the court to allow intelligence and military officers to read the mail sent by lawyers to their clients. Lawyers would also be limited to three visits with each client, and an inmate would be allowed only a single visit to decide whether to authorize an attorney to handle his case.
Interrogators at Guantánamo Bay have a history of masking their identities, so the rule would make it much harder than it already is to gain the trust of a prisoner.
Perhaps the most outrageous of the Justice Department's proposals would allow government officials - on their own authority - to deny lawyers access to the evidence used to decide whether an inmate is an illegal enemy combatant."
What also ought to be a concern to any right-thinking Australian is that the Howard Government so slavishly endorses what the George Bush White House wants and does.
The same topic, the denial of proper and unfettered access of lawyers to their clients at Gitmo, is also dealt with in this report in The Independent.
"It can be hard to tell whom the Bush administration considers more of an enemy at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp: the prisoners or the lawyers.
William Glaberson reported in the International Herald Tribune on Friday that the Justice Department had asked a federal appeals court to remove some of the last shreds of legal representation available to the prisoners.
Under current rules, the mail between lawyers and inmates at Guantánamo Bay is checked for contraband, but not read. The lawyers are also allowed to review classified evidence against their clients, and there is no limit on the number of visits they can make.
The government wants the court to allow intelligence and military officers to read the mail sent by lawyers to their clients. Lawyers would also be limited to three visits with each client, and an inmate would be allowed only a single visit to decide whether to authorize an attorney to handle his case.
Interrogators at Guantánamo Bay have a history of masking their identities, so the rule would make it much harder than it already is to gain the trust of a prisoner.
Perhaps the most outrageous of the Justice Department's proposals would allow government officials - on their own authority - to deny lawyers access to the evidence used to decide whether an inmate is an illegal enemy combatant."
What also ought to be a concern to any right-thinking Australian is that the Howard Government so slavishly endorses what the George Bush White House wants and does.
The same topic, the denial of proper and unfettered access of lawyers to their clients at Gitmo, is also dealt with in this report in The Independent.
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