Michael Otterman's powerful book, 
Michael Otterman is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney, as well as an award-winning journalist and filmmaker.
Thursday, April 26, 2007
The Michael Mori Effect
Today we learn, according to the New York Times, that:
It's important to remember that Cuba was chosen as the site to hold "enemy combatants" because it ostensibly would bar US courts and US lawyers from examining/exposing the conditions of confinement at the base. But, the plan to keep lawyers out of Cuba backfired in June 2004 when the Supreme Court ruled that detainees did have a right to challenge their detention in courts. Since then, the administration has fought hard to remove counsel-- most notably with the 2006 Military Commissions Act.
While that Act's constitutionality is still being tested, in the meantime the government has made it clear that it does not want another Major Michael Mori-- the military defense lawyer who deftly rallied international support for his client David Hicks-- on their hands.
"The Justice Department has asked a federal appeals court to impose tighter restrictions on the hundreds of lawyers who represent detainees at Guantánamo Bay... The filing says the lawyers have caused unrest among the detainees and have improperly served as a conduit to the news media.This proposal is an attempt by the Bush administration to scale oversight at Guantanamo back to dark days of 2002-2004-- a time when human rights abuse, according to the FBI, was at its worst.
[...]
Under the proposal, filed this month in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, the government would limit lawyers to three visits with an existing client at Guantánamo; there is now no limit. It would permit only a single visit with a detainee to have him authorize a lawyer to handle his case. And it would permit a team of intelligence officers and military lawyers not involved in a detainee’s case to read mail sent to him by his lawyer."
It's important to remember that Cuba was chosen as the site to hold "enemy combatants" because it ostensibly would bar US courts and US lawyers from examining/exposing the conditions of confinement at the base. But, the plan to keep lawyers out of Cuba backfired in June 2004 when the Supreme Court ruled that detainees did have a right to challenge their detention in courts. Since then, the administration has fought hard to remove counsel-- most notably with the 2006 Military Commissions Act.
While that Act's constitutionality is still being tested, in the meantime the government has made it clear that it does not want another Major Michael Mori-- the military defense lawyer who deftly rallied international support for his client David Hicks-- on their hands.