Rense: US Allows Torture to Obtain Information

[Guest guest]

If we are fighting for " freedom " how can we allow torture? And

don't think this only applies to those foreigners over there,

remember, us American citizens can be deemed enemy combatants too.

Other comments?

Misty L. Trepke

http://www..com

 

Government: Evidence gained by torture allowed

Judges could rule soon on Guantanamo detainee suits

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 Posted: 3:42 AM EST (0842 GMT)

 

http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/12/02/guantanamo.detainees/index.html

 

 

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. military panels reviewing the detention of

foreigners as enemy combatants are allowed to use evidence gained by

torture in deciding whether to keep them imprisoned at Guantanamo

Bay, Cuba, the government conceded in court Thursday.

 

The acknowledgment by Principal Deputy Associate Attorney General

Brian Boyle came during a U.S. District Court hearing on lawsuits

brought by some of the 550 foreigners imprisoned at the U.S. naval

base in Cuba. The lawsuits challenge their detention without charges

for up to three years so far.

 

Attorneys for the prisoners argued that some were held solely on

evidence gained by torture, which they said violated fundamental

fairness and U.S. due process standards. But Boyle argued in a

similar hearing Wednesday that the detainees " have no constitutional

rights enforceable in this court. "

 

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon asked if a detention would be

illegal if it were based solely on evidence gathered by torture,

because " torture is illegal. We all know that. "

 

Boyle replied that if the military's combatant status review

tribunals (or CSRTs) " determine that evidence of questionable

provenance were reliable, nothing in the due process clause (of the

Constitution) prohibits them from relying on it. "

 

Leon asked if there were any restrictions on using evidence produced

by torture.

 

Boyle replied the United States would never adopt a policy that

would have barred it from acting on evidence that could have

prevented the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks even if the data

came from questionable practices like torture by a foreign power.

 

Evidence based on torture is not admissible in U.S. courts. " About

70 years ago, the Supreme Court stopped the use of evidence produced

by third-degree tactics largely on the theory that it was totally

unreliable, " Harvard Law Professor Philip B. Heymann, a former

deputy U.S. attorney general, said in an interview.

 

Subsequent high court rulings were based on revulsion at " the

unfairness and brutality of it and later on the idea that

confessions ought to be free and uncompelled. "

 

Leon asked if U.S. courts could review detentions based on evidence

from torture conducted by U.S. personnel.

 

Boyle said torture was against U.S. policy and any allegations of it

would be " forwarded through command channels for military

discipline. " He added, " I don't think anything remotely like torture

has occurred at Guantanamo " but noted that some U.S. soldiers there

had been disciplined for misconduct, including a female interrogator

who removed her blouse during questioning.

 

The International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday it has

given the Bush administration a confidential report critical of U.S.

treatment of Guantanamo detainees. The New York Times reported the

Red Cross described the psychological and physical coercion used at

Guantanamo as " tantamount to torture. "

 

The CSRT panels, composed of three military officers, usually

colonels or lieutenant colonels, were set up after the Supreme Court

ruled in June that the detainees could ask U.S. courts to see to it

that they had a proceeding in which to challenge their detention.

They have finished reviewing the status of 440 of the prisoners but

have released only one.

 

The military also set up an annual administrative review which

considers whether the detainee still presents a danger to the United

States but doesn't review enemy combatant status. Administrative

reviews have been completed for 161.

 

Boyle argued these procedures are sufficient to satisfy the high

court and the detainee lawsuits should be thrown out.

 

Noting that detainees cannot have lawyers at the CSRT proceedings

and cannot see any secret evidence against them, attorney Wes Powell

argued " there is no meaningful opportunity in the CSRTs to rebut the

government's claims. "

 

Leon asked, however, " if the judiciary puts its nose into this,

won't that lead us into reviewing decisions about who to target and

even into the adequacy of information supporting the decision to

seize a person? "

 

Leon said he thought an earlier Supreme Court ruling would limit

judges to checking only on whether detention orders were lawfully

issued and detention review panels were legally established.

 

Leon and Judge Joyce Hens Green, who held another hearing Wednesday

on detainees' rights, said they will try to rule soon on whether the

59 detainees can proceed with their lawsuits.