In response to an Associated Press lawsuit, the Pentagon today released the names of all the inmates being held at Guantanamo Bay.
The names were scattered throughout more than 5,000 pages of transcripts of hearings in which detainees defended themselves against allegations that they were "enemy combatants." That classification, Bush administration lawyers say, deprives the detainees of Geneva Convention prisoner-of-war protections and allows them to be held indefinitely without charges.
Which sums up why it will be a great day for this country when the "enemy combatant" designation is retired for good.
"You can't just draw a veil of secrecy when you are locking people up," said Jamie Fellner, director of the U.S. program for Human Rights Watch. "You have to do at least the minimum, which is to acknowledge who you are holding."
Precisely.
I look forward to finding out what news organizations discover after poring through the data. I also hope many of the documents make their way online so we can examine them ourselves.
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terrorism, Guantanamo, civil liberties, civil rights, politics, midtopia
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