Proposed limitations on lawyer visits to Guantanamo reversed by Justice Department

In a motion filed Friday at the U.S. Court of Appeals in the DC Circuit, the Justice Department ruled that there is no need to limit the number of times lawyers can visit inmates at Guantanamo Bay. The Bush administration initially attempted to limit the number of visits to three.

The proposed measures were yet another attempt by the administration to impose increasingly harsh restrictions on access to detainees at Guantanamo, and further obstruct the legal channels between attorney and client. The national security line was cited as the reason for imposing the limitations, which also sort to curb detainee access to mail sent to them by their lawyers, which apparently updated them about terrorist attacks in Iraq, efforts in the war on terror and so on.

In a deepening quagmire of controversy for the administration, one has to ask the question of how exactly informing an inmate in solitary confinement of the latest reports from Iraq – which can be obtained from the mass media - can further endanger national security. Commenting on this reversal, Justice Department lawyers wrote that:

"Based on a current evaluation of resources and needs at Guantanamo, the (government) has decided this provision is no longer warranted.”

This is certainly encouraging news, although it only serves to reverse a proposed restriction rather than addressing any that are currently enforced - such as the limited amount of evidence defense lawyers are granted access to and the heavy redactment of many of these documents.