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President Barack Obama faced a civil liberties backlash today after he signed a law that will allow terror suspects to be held indefinitely- even raising the prospects of U.S. citizens being sent to Guantanamo Bay. The controversial move, revealed last night, effectively extends the laws of the battlefield to American soil. The move shows a clear hardening of Mr Obama’s anti-terror policies, and a major shift from the liberal stance that helped him sweep into power three years ago.

<p>It now becomes perfectly clear why Obama did not want to close down Guantánamo Bay. It’s the perfect place to ‘disappear’ his Tea Party enemies during Election Year...</p> <p>Obama’s well covered by mainstream media threat to veto what can only be described as Soviet Union Horror Come to America, was only the drama he could milk during the Final Act.</p>

Obama faces criticism from all sides for terrorism suspect’s offshore interrogation, civilian trialPAUL KORING WASHINGTON— Globe and Mail Update Last updated Thursday, Jul. 07, 2011 7:56PM EDT After holding a Somali terrorism suspect for two months on a U.S. warship, the Obama administration secretly flew him to New York for trial in a civilian court, leaving both rights groups and Congress infuriated. The clandestine imprisonment at sea echoed Bush-era – and widely condemned – efforts to deny detainees constitutional protections while interrogating them offshore. Meanwhile, opting to surreptitiously bring the Somali to a U.S. federal court not far from where...

In an especially well-timed release this week, Richard Miniter’s MASTERMIND: The Many Faces of the 9/11 Architect, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed reveals Mohammed’s rise to the top of Al Qaeda and his planning of the jihadist attacks on America in 2001. More than that, though, Miniter’s book includes shocking new disclosures about how the US treats its detainees. Miniter tells Big Peace: I was stunned to learn while researching Mastermind that Guantanamo detainees succeeded in convincing prison officials to no longer raise the American flag anywhere they could see it. Each morning on every U.S. military base around the world, the...

Apparently, the key to the whole operation was finding and tracking Bin Laden’s most trusted courier, a process that took years — and involved info given by Guantanamo detainees: Sunday afternoon’s raid by U.S. forces that killed Osama bin Laden was the “culmination of years of careful and highly advanced intelligence work,” senior administration officials said in a conference call, describing the genesis of an operation that sounded like it was right out of a “Mission Impossible” movie. Some time after Sept. 11, detainees held by the U.S. told interrogators about a man believed to work as a courier for...

Attorney General Eric Holder today will announce that self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will be tried in a military commission. A source says the commission will be held at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Attorney General Eric Holder today will announce that self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad will be tried in a military commission, CBS News has learned. A source says the commission will be held at the Guantanamo Bay prison. Trying Mohammed in a civilian court and closing the Guantanamo prison were once some of the Obama administration's top priorities, but political realities have hamstrung both goals. Holder previously recommended that Mohammed and four other alleged Sept. 11 plotters be tried in New York City...

Navy lawyers on Fox. They say Obama is blocking military prosecution of terrorists held at Gitmo by blocking any money needed to proceed and by throwing up roadblocks. Obama has no intention of allowing these murderers to be tried by military commissions. Apparently, he plans to quietly release them at some time. Surprising that military people are saying so in public. Suggests a growing divide between Obama and the military. (As an aside, military is against our actions in Libya but is following orders).

President Obama announced Monday that military trials will resume for detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, saying the tribunals are an "important tool in combating international terrorists."

Guantanamo Bay detainees might have a new home in the United States: Berkeley. The City Council is to vote Feb. 15 on a resolution to invite detainees who have been cleared of wrongdoing to resettle within Berkeley's sunny confines. Of the 38 detainees who have been cleared, Berkeley would invite two: a Russian ballet dancer and an Algerian who was a top-rated Italian chef in Austria. "Our hearts are with all those people who were never tried, held for years and in some cases tortured," said Wendy Kenin, chairwoman of the city's Peace and Justice Commission, which crafted the resolution....

President Obama’s national intelligence director told colleagues in a private memo last week that the harsh interrogation techniques banned by the White House did produce significant information that helped the nation in its struggle with terrorists. “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al Qa’ida organization that was attacking this country,” Adm. Dennis C. Blair, the intelligence director, wrote in a memo to his staff last Thursday. -snip- Admiral Blair’s assessment that the interrogation methods did produce important information was deleted from a condensed version of his memo...

The White House is preparing an Executive Order on indefinite detention that will provide periodic reviews of evidence against dozens of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, according to several administration officials. The draft order, a version of which was first considered nearly 18 months ago, is expected to be signed by President Obama early in the New Year. The order allows for the possibility that detainees from countries like Yemen might be released if circumstances there change. But the order establishes indefinite detention as a long-term Obama administration policy and makes clear that the White House alone will manage a...

(MEMRI)- Following are excerpts from an interview with Walid Muhammad Hajj a Sudanese released from Guantanamo Prison, which aired on Al-Jazeera TV on December 12, 2010: Walid Muhammad Hajj: Yes. The most common method to wear down the brothers was witchcraft. Interviewer: How did they do this? Walid Muhammad Hajj: There were, of course, Jews among the [staff of] the Guantanamo Base, and they would set traps for the guys. Interviewer: Give me an example of witchcraft. Walid Muhammad Hajj: Witchcraft was used on most of the guys. Interviewer: They would cast a spell on them? Walid Muhammad Hajj: Yes,...

      WASHINGTON — It's a tough time to be a member of the U.S. armed forces. Those serving in our all-volunteer military — and their families — are stretched and stressed by more than nine years of war. Unfortunately, our commander in chief — supposedly the champion of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardsmen and Marines — isn't doing anything to make serving in uniform any easier. President Barack Obama — fresh from his 3 1/2-hour "visit" to Afghanistan — continues to insist that the U.S. Senate act immediately to allow active homosexuals to serve in the military....

Illinois Republicans were successful Friday in stripping a provision from a House defense bill that would have given permission for the transfer to the U.S. of detainees in the Guantanamo Bay military prison. The issue is of special importance to Illinois GOP lawmakers because earlier this year the Obama administration moved to buy an underutilized state prison in Thomson, Ill., in part to house Guantanamo detainees. Closing Guantanamo was a central Obama pledge that the president has not been able to keep — a promise made during his campaign and on his first day in office. Congress needs to give...

To the United States, Julian Assange may now be Public Enemy Number One. Some American politicians have even called for his execution. But less than a year ago, the founder of WikiLeaks was officially entertained at a US Embassy cocktail party by one of the very diplomats whose secrets he would soon spill to the world. Mr Assange's site had already published dozens of leaks embarrassing to the US, including secret Guantanamo Bay detainee handling manuals and the full emails of Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate. The US State Department condemned the manuals' publication as "a criminal act."

Nearly one in four terrorists released from the detention facility at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, resumed terrorist activities against the United States and the number is expected to rise, according to a report to Congress by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI).The report, made public Tuesday, stated that out of a total of 598 detainees released as of October, 150 were confirmed or suspected of "reengaging in terrorist or insurgent activities after transfer," the two-page unclassified summary said.The report's findings prompted a harsh response from Sen. Christopher S. Bond, Missouri Republican and vice chairman...

NOTE The following text is a quote: Petraeus Discusses Future of Afghan Detainees By U.S. Navy Chief Petty Officer Maria Yager American Forces Press Service PARWAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan, Sept. 28, 2010 – The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan toured the U.S. Detention Facility here yesterday, and discussed his vision for detention operations in Afghanistan. “When I took command of Multinational Force-Iraq in February 2007, we still had Camp Bucca with 17,000 detainees at that time and it grew larger,” said Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander, International Security Assistance Force and commander, U.S. Forces Afghanistan. ”We still had all of...

Detainees’ diets at Guantanamo Bay have been a controversial issue for some time and now the U.S. prison is said to be rationing ice cream. The frozen dessert is allegedly being tightly measured, with only one ice cream allowed for each of its 147 detainees. Journalist for The Miami Herald, Carol Rosenberg, photographed a refrigerator at Guantanamo, with two signs reading ‘DETAINEE FOOD ONLY’ and ‘Only 1 Ice Cream For each detainee!’

MIAMI - A U.S. military judge has ruled there is no credible evidence that a Canadian prisoner on trial in Guantanamo on murder and terrorism conspiracy charges was tortured into confessing after his capture in Afghanistan. In a written ruling released by the Pentagon Friday, Army Colonel Patrick Parrish gave his arguments for rejecting a motion by lawyers of Omar Khadr requesting that confessions made by Khadr to U.S. interrogators should not used as evidence in his trial on grounds they were obtained through torture. A military tribunal trying Khadr opened proceedings last week at the Guantanamo Bay naval base...

Four of the nation's most highly valued terrorist prisoners were secretly moved to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2003, years earlier than has been disclosed, then were whisked back into overseas prisons before the Supreme Court could give them access to lawyers, The Associated Press has learned. The transfer allowed the U.S. to interrogate the detainees in CIA "black sites" for two more years without allowing them to speak with attorneys or human rights observers or challenge their detention in U.S. courts. Had they remained at the Guantanamo Bay prison for just three more months, they would have been afforded those...

A white, unmarked Boeing 737 landed in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, before dawn on a CIA mission so secretive, many in the nation's war on terrorism were kept in the dark. Four of the nation's most highly valued terrorist prisoners were aboard. *snip* Then, months later, they were just as quietly whisked away before the Supreme Court could give them access to lawyers. *snip* It also shows how insistent the Bush administration was that terrorists must be held outside the U.S. court system.

Four of the nation's most highly valued terrorist prisoners were secretly moved to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in 2003, years earlier than has been disclosed, then whisked back into overseas prisons before the Supreme Court could give them access to lawyers, The Associated Press has learned. The transfer allowed the U.S. to interrogate the detainees in CIA "black sites" for two more years without allowing them to speak with attorneys or human rights observers or challenge their detention in U.S. courts. Had they remained at the Guantanamo Bay prison for just three more months, they would have been afforded those rights....

In an exclusive interview with CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer on CBS' "Face the Nation," Attorney General Eric Holder said that political posturing has delayed some of the administration's top priorities -- bringing self-proclaimed Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to trial and closing the prison and Guantanamo Bay. Holder said the administration will make a decision as to where [the KSM] trial will occur "as soon as we can." "But we are bound and determined to hold Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and those who worked with him… responsible for happened on September 11," he told Schieffer during the...

KABUL, Afghanistan – Members of Joint Task Force-435 provided an overview June 16 of detention operations and the Detention Facility in Parwan. U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, deputy commander, JTF-435, and Afghan National Army Brig. Gen. Mohibullah Rahman, deputy commander, JTF-435, and Mike Gottlieb, civilian deputy commander, JTF-435, spoke about the U.S. detention and intelligence operations in full partnership with the Afghan Government and ISAF. Detention operations will be turned over to the Afghan Government next year. Martins spoke about policy, administration and release issues in the context of detention operations. “This is a historic time for Afghanistan with...

June 11, 2010. Obama Orders Dance Classes, Movie Nights, & Bingo for Illegal Detainees; Chris Banescu. The Houston Chronicle reports that the Obama administration has ordered the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) department to implement multiple modifications to their facilities to make life easier, more comfortable, and pleasant for the hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants (approximately 400,000) it detains annually. An internal ICE email highlights 28 different changes the organization will have to make to soften the look of its facilities, present a friendlier environment, offer better entertainment, organize fun activities, and provide illegal immigrant detainees with free access...

In September 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama decided to change policy toward prisoners at Bagram, granting them lawyers for the first time and a review of their status every 6 months. Detainees can take literacy classes or lessons in farming and also have access to a high-tech medical center. There is a playground for their children when they come to visit. About a quarter who have been reviewed since January have been sent back to their communities, said Martins.

In an interesting development the House Armed Services Committee unanimously approved legislation that would block Gitmo, Illinois from coming to fruition. In fact, they’ve blocked any Gitmo terrorist from being transferred anywhere into the interior of the USA. This is a blow to Obama’s desires to shut Gitmo down and to bring terrorists to a prison near you. Wednesday the committee approved a defense bill for 2011 that includes language to prevent moving detainees into any US facility inside our borders and also blocked any funding to even study the possibility.-snip-Amusingly, the New York Times tried to spin this as...

WASHINGTON—Congressman Todd Akin (R-MO), ranking member of the House Armed Services Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee today, sent a letter cosigned by 47 colleagues to President Obama urging a full and thorough investigation of the ACLU’s John Adams project which may have intentionally revealed the identity of covert CIA operatives to members of Al Qaeda currently held at Guantanamo Bay. The following is the list of cosigners on the letter to President Obama regarding the alleged outing of covert CIA agents by ACLU’s John Adam’s project: Todd Akin (R-MO), Robert Aderholt (R-AL), Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), Rob Bishop (R-UT), Marsha Blackburn...

The Bush White House knew that hundreds of early Gitmo detainees were innocent, but refused to release them because the admission would weaken support for the war in Iraq, according to a new document obtained by the Times of London. The charge, by Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, was made in a declaration in support of a lawsuit for a Gitmo detainee. Wilkerson claims that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld knew that the majority of the initial 742 detainees had been picked up, not by the US military, but by Afghans and Pakistanis for...

Reality keeps intruding on Attorney General Eric Holder’s approach to terrorism. During recent testimony before the House Appropriations Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee, Holder had a heated exchange with Rep. John Culberson (R-Texas), over the rights of terrorists – specifically over whether a captured Osama bin Laden would need to be read his Miranda rights in accordance with the civilian prosecution model that Holder continues to advocate. Holder’s response: “Let’s deal with reality…we will be reading Miranda rights to the corpse of Osama bin Laden.  He will never appear in an American courtroom…He will be killed by us, or he will...

Megyn Kelly believes Holder is entitled to have civilian trials for GITMO detainees. This is flat WRONG. While those detained as enemy combatants are entitled to the writ of habeas corpus to contest their designation as "enemy combatants" in civilian courts per 5/4 SC vote in Boumediene v. Bush, they are to be tried under the Military Commissions Act of 2006, so long as the procedures are analogous to the rules applicable to courts-martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice per 5/3 vote in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (with CJ Roberts not participating).

CAMP TAJI - U.S. Forces assigned to the Camp Taji Theater Internment Facility Reconciliation Center here relinquished full control of the facility and its detainees to the Government of Iraq, March 15. By August, complete detainee operations handover to Iraq control is expected to be completed with the transfer of Camp Cropper, the last U.S.-ran internment facility in theater. "Approximately 3,000 detainees are being transferred to Iraq, that's roughly 60 percent of the U.S. controlled detainee population," said Lt. Col. Daniel D. Deadrich, Taji TIFRC commander and the 705th Military Police Battalion commander, based in Fort Leavenworth, Kan. The handover...

The CIA and Justice Department are fighting over a secret investigation into a controversial program by legal supporters of Islamist terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay that involved photographing CIA interrogators and showing the pictures to prisoners, an effort CIA officials say threatens the officers' lives. The dispute prompted a meeting Tuesday at CIA headquarters between U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald and senior CIA counterintelligence officials. It is the latest battle between the agency and the department over detainees and interrogations of terrorists. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. angered many CIA officials and Republicans in Congress by reopening an investigation...

<p>Why is the national security community treating the "Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010," introduced by Sens. John McCain and Joseph Lieberman on Thursday as a standard proposal, as a simple response to the administration's choices in the aftermath of the Christmas Day bombing attempt? A close reading of the bill suggests it would allow the U.S. military to detain U.S. citizens without trial indefinitely in the U.S. based on suspected activity. Read the bill here.</p>

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is leaning toward trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and the other alleged plotters of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in a military tribunal, reversing a Justice Department pledge to put them before a civilian court. Administration officials said moves by Congress as well as by local and state governments are all but foreclosing the civilian-court option. Members of Congress have moved to cut off funds for a civilian trial, while local governments have expressed reluctance to play host to such a trial.

Joe Lieberman is once again endorsing John McCain over Barack Obama – this time on a critical national security issue. Lieberman and McCain have introduced a bill that would deny Miranda rights to terrorist suspects and block them from the U.S. civil court system. The bill could interfere with the Obama administration’s efforts to cut a deal with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham to develop a comprehensive system to deal with detainees—an effort that would include some role for federal courts. Graham, a military lawyer and currently serves a colonel in the U.S. Air Force reserves, has been negotiating with White...

Top advisers to President Obama are close to a decision recommending that the self-proclaimed mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks be prosecuted in a military tribunal, The Washington Post reported Friday, citing unnamed administration officials. According to the report, the president's advisors have grown increasingly wary of bipartisan opposition to the planned civilian federal trial in New York City, mere blocks from where nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in the spectacular attack on the World Trade Center. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and prominent state Democrats, who initially embraced Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to try Khalid Sheikh...

A day after a conservative group released a video condemning the Justice Department for refusing to identify seven lawyers who previously represented or advocated for terror suspects, Fox News has uncovered the identities of the seven lawyers. The names were confirmed by a Justice Department spokesman, who said "politics has overtaken facts and reality" in a tug-of-war over the lawyers' identities. "Department of Justice attorneys work around the clock to keep this country safe, and it is offensive that their patriotism is being questioned," said Justice Department Spokesman Matt Miller. The video by the group Keep America Safe, which dubbed...

What's Eric Holder trying to hide now! For an Attorney General of an administration that promised to be the most open and transparent in history the guy sure keeps a lot of secrets. Holder continues to ignore serious incidents of corruption that could impact the friends of the White House, and continues to stonewall inquiries into why he is not investigating those incidents.

ustice Department on So-called ”Al Qaeda Seven”: We Will Not Participate in An Attempt to Drag People’s Names Through the Mud March 03, 2010 4:19 PM For several weeks, Republican lawmakers and a conservative group have been attacking the Justice Department for refusing to reveal the names of nine officials who have in some way advocated for or represented detainees at Guantanamo Bay. "The administration has made many highly questionable decisions when it comes to national security, " Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a recent statement, arguing that the public has “a right to know who advises the Attorney...

SARGODHA, Pakistan – Prosecutors seeking to indict five Americans on terrorist charges submitted their case to a Pakistani judge Tuesday, accusing the men of waging war against Pakistan and plotting to attack the country. All young Muslims from the Washington, D.C., area, the five were arrested in December in Punjab province not long after reaching Pakistan. They were reported missing by their families in November ... A senior police officer said soon after the men's arrest that authorities were likely to deport them, but it now looks increasingly like they will face trial in Pakistan on charges that carry a...

FORT WORTH, Texas (Associated Press) -- An attorney says the Army psychiatrist charged in the worst mass shooting on a U.S. military base will soon be moved to a county jail near Fort Hood after four months in a military hospital. Defense attorney John Galligan says Maj. Nidal Hasan could be moved this week. Bell County Jail administrator Bob Patterson says Hasan will be housed in a cell at the medical unit. Patterson said Monday the facility is prepared to handle inmates with special medical needs.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — To American officers at Guantanamo Bay, Ahmed Zaid Salem Zuhair was inmate No. 669 — a hardcore, veteran Muslim terrorist suspected of having killed an American in Bosnia. But here in Saudi Arabia, he is a "beneficiary," a former religious deviant who, having learned the true meaning of Islam, has been rehabilitated. Repatriated from Guantanamo in mid-2009, Zuhair, 45, continued to proclaim his innocence in an interview, asserting that he had only been doing peaceful relief work in Bosnia and Pakistan prior to his arrest in 2002, when Pakistani officials robbed, tortured and "sold" him to...

Colleagues of Senator Lindsay Graham have leaked that he and the White House are negotiating over where and how to conduct the 9/11 trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-conspirators. In additional, President Barack Obama will apparently take a personal role in the negotiations and may overrule Attorney General Eric Holder's decisions to this point. We need a statute, a 'Rule of War Act', with no special date, sunset provisions, or naming it after some personage or group. It would be the civilian authority providing for the common defense, while informed by the governed. First, the entire negotiation...

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba -- It is the oddest of unintended airport stopovers -- a short stay at Guantanamo Bay. Helicopter flights for the ship I was trying to reach off the coast of Haiti had been canceled. So I slept in an Air Force tent at Camp Freedom, an arrow's shot from where 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed is imprisoned -- his stay now extended longer than the Obama administration would wish. "Guantanamo" has become a synonym for "prison." Actually, it is a 45-square-mile U.S. Navy base, complete with a McDonald's and a Subway. The Guantanamo Bay Children and Youth...

This fiasco disgusts Americans. A February 1 Rasmussen survey discovered that only 16 percent of likely voters want terrorists to enjoy the same legal rights as U.S. citizens, while 74 percent disagree. Meanwhile, HumanEvents.com (which often posts my columns) has gathered 126,665 signatures on its online petition demanding KSM and company’s ejection from civilian court. “These proceedings will make the O. J. Simpson trial look like a traffic-court hearing,” says Marc Thiessen, author of Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack , a new bestseller on the Obama administration’s soft-on-terror...

Who are the 300 terrorists held in U.S. prisons? By: Byron York Chief Political CorrespondentFebruary 5, 2010 "The Bush administration used the criminal justice system to convict more than 300 individuals on terrorism-related charges," writes Attorney General Eric Holder in a new letter to Republican critics in Congress. The letter is part of the Obama administration's aggressive defense of its decision to grant full American constitutional rights to al Qaeda soldier Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the accused Christmas Day bomber. That defense boils down to one sentence: Bush did it, too.Republicans on Capitol Hill object. They argue that one of the...

What exactly did Bush and Cheney do wrong? Democratic and media elites attack Obama for departing from the prior administration's Terrorism approach Glenn Greenwald Feb. 02, 2010 | (updated below) As I noted several days ago, it is not only Republicans -- but Democratic and media establishment figures as well -- who clearly crave the preservation of the Bush/Cheney approach to Terrorism and civil liberties. When Bush's popularity collapsed to historic lows, political and media elites pretended for awhile to object to his administration's fear-based and radical policies as extremist and an assault on "our values." But that was all...

Five American Muslims in custody in Sargodha threw a handwritten note to reporters from a police vehicle while on their way to a court hearing...Tuesday, stating: “Since our arrest, the U.S.A., F.B.I., and Pakistani police have tortured us,” according to their representative, Khalid Khawaja. A Pakistani relative of one of the men also claimed that the police had threatened to give them electric shocks. A spokesman for the American Embassy in Islamabad, Richard W. Snelsire, said that the United States “categorically rejects those allegations.” Mr. Khawaja, whose organization provided the young men’s lawyer, said a bail hearing would be held...