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Absurd! - Pure and Simple

Open your newspaper or watch TV and you will be treated to the latest revelations via WikiLeaks documents. This past week much has been revealed about Gitmo, the number of prisoners there and the extraordinarily poor, if not false, material available to the authorities relating to the imprisoned inmates.

As if the whole situation wasn't disgraceful enough, now farce enters into the picture. The New York Times reports that lawyers for prisoners have been advised that even if documents have been leaked that they remain classified and must therefore be dealt with as such.

"Anyone surfing the Internet this week is free to read leaked documents about the prisoners held by the American military at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to print them out or e-mail them to friends.

Except, that is, for the lawyers who represent the prisoners.

On Monday, hours after WikiLeaks, The New York Times and other news organizations began publishing the documents online, the Justice Department informed Guantánamo defense lawyers that the documents remained legally classified even after they were made public.

Because the lawyers have security clearances, they are obligated to treat the readily available files “in accordance with all relevant security precautions and safeguards” — handling them, for example, only in secure government facilities, said the notice from the department’s Court Security Office.

It is only the latest absurdist challenge posed by the flood of classified material obtained by WikiLeaks over the past year: field reports from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; State Department cables; and now the military’s risk assessments of 700 past or present Guantánamo prisoners."

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