Government Should Make Bagram Documents Public, Says ACLU

[slipslidingaway]

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/39442prs20090423.html

NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union today asked the Obama administration to make public records pertaining to the detention and treatment of prisoners held at the Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records pertaining to the number of people currently detained at Bagram and their names, citizenship, place of capture and length of detention. The ACLU is also seeking records pertaining to the process afforded those prisoners to challenge their detention and designation as "enemy combatants."

"The U.S. government's detention of hundreds of prisoners at Bagram has been shrouded in complete secrecy. Bagram houses far more prisoners than Guantánamo, in reportedly worse conditions and with an even less meaningful process for challenging their detention, yet very little information about the Bagram facility or the prisoners held there has been made public," said Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "Without transparency, we can't be sure that we're doing the right thing – or even holding the right people – at Bagram."


...The ACLU's request is addressed to the Departments of Defense, Justice and State and the CIA.

A federal judge recently ruled that three prisoners being held by the U.S. at Bagram can challenge their detention in U.S. courts, in habeas corpus suits brought by the International Justice Network, Stanford Law School's International Human Rights Clinic and the National Litigation Project of Yale Law School's Allard K. Lowenstein International Human Rights Clinic. The prisoners, who were captured outside of Afghanistan and are not Afghan citizens, have been held there for more than six years without charge or access to counsel. The Obama administration is appealing the ruling..."

[Dragonfli]

1. Why appeal the ruling? Sounds like good law to me

I am not a lawyer but it seems like a simple question of Habeas Corpus.
There must be something I'm missing.

Can any lawyers explain to me what?

[slipslidingaway]

2. Hi Dragonfli, there is a little more information here...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5511733&mesg_id=5512288

Unfortunately, it does not really answer your question of why the administration is appealing the ruling.

:(

[Dragonfli]

3. Thank You for the information

I hope it is only a temporary holding pattern.
If it ends with the administration revoking Habeas Corpus anywhere, I will sadly have to fight the administration.

I believe in rule of law and the right to justice and thus cannot abide any government that can lock one up indefinitely without charges.

[slipslidingaway]

5. YW, a little more....

guess we'll no more in July once the review is complete.

:shrug:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/opinion/13mon1.html?ref=opinion

"...In February, the new administration disappointingly followed the example of the Bush White House in opposing judicial review for prisoners who have been indefinitely detained at Bagram without any charges or access to lawyers. The administration has now added to that disappointment by appealing a new federal court ruling extending the right of habeas corpus to some Bagram detainees.

The ruling was issued by Judge John Bates of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Narrowly crafted, the ruling essentially grants all non-Afghan Bagram detainees captured outside Afghanistan and held over six years without due process the same right to federal court review that the Supreme Court gave last year to similarly situated prisoners at Guantánamo.

Bagram differs from Guantánamo in that it is located in an active theater of war. Historically, habeas corpus has not extended to detainees held abroad in zones of combat. But the evidence suggests it was the prospect that Guantánamo detentions might be subject to judicial oversight that caused the military to divert captives to Bagram instead.

The theater of war excuse for denying judicial review, the judge found, is unpersuasive when the government imports detainees from elsewhere. “It is one thing to detain those captured on the surrounding battlefield at a place like Bagram,” Judge Bates wrote. “It is quite another thing to apprehend people in foreign countries — far from any Afghan battlefield — and then bring them to a theater of war, where the Constitution arguably may not reach.”

[lucretia54]

4. To see how "valuable" Bagram is to the military for it's contribution

in the area of "enhanced interrogation" (phrases like that make me want to puke), rent- if you can, the documentary TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE...

It tells the role of Bagram in the sordid history of torture in modern day U.S. A lot of it does make waterboarding look tame, unfortunately.

[slipslidingaway]

6. Dilawar, one of the unlucky ones...

:(


Taxi To the Dark Side
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRogSqsrqww


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxi_to_the_Dark_Side

"Taxi to the Dark Side is a 2007 documentary film directed by American filmmaker Alex Gibney, and produced by Eva Orner and Susannah Shipman, which won the 2007 Academy Award for Documentary Feature.<1>

The film focuses on the murder in custody of an Afghan taxi driver named Dilawar.<2> Dilawar was beaten to death by American soldiers while being held in extrajudicial detention at the Bagram Air Base.

Taxi to the Dark Side also goes on to examine America's policy on torture and interrogation in general, specifically the CIA's use of torture and their research into sensory deprivation. There is description of the opposition to the use of torture from its political and military opponents, as well as the defense of such methods; the attempts by Congress to uphold the standards of the Geneva Convention forbidding torture; and the popularization of the use of torture techniques in shows such as 24..."

[EFerrari]

8. Welcome to DU, lucretia54.

:)

[EFerrari]

7. ACLU has been waiting for this moment since 2001. n/t

[slipslidingaway]

9. Sad, just think of all that we do not know about Bagram n/t

[EFerrari]

10. We know the LEAST about Bagram and that's so dangerous.

It's so good to finally see even the NAME come up.

[slipslidingaway]

11. Yes, did you see this....

Sen. Feingold Questions Afghanistan Strategy During Foreign Relations Committee Hearing

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5522908&mesg_id=5522908

[slipslidingaway]

12. 60 million dollar prison expansion...

from 2008

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/top10-2008/index.html

"...In the first half of 2008, the Bush administration boosted U.S. forces in Afghanistan by more than 21,000, or nearly 85 percent, with significant increases in the presence of Air Force and Marine personnel. Even reluctant NATO members have pledged to kick in a few thousand troops.

The United States has also been on a building spree, planning a $100 million airfield expansion in Kandahar and a $50 million prison facility near Bagram Air Base. In requesting supplemental funding from Congress to build a $62 million ammunition storage facility near Bagram, the Army said the base “must be able to provide for a long term, steady state presence which is able to surge to meet theater contingency requirements.”



US expands prison in Afghanistan

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/02/200922041829271189.html

"The US military is about to complete a $60m expansion to its prison at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where it holds more than 600 so-called enemy combatants.

The near doubling of the jail's size comes as Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, prepares on Friday to "refine" Washington's position on its use of Bagram and other facilities, including Guantanamo Bay..."



Next flash point over terror detainees: Bagram prison
With Guantánamo set to close, more attention is falling on the US military facility in Afghanistan and those in custody there.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0212/p01s01-usmi.html


"At the height of its operation, the terror detention camp at Guantánamo was viewed as a legal black hole, a place where Al Qaeda suspects could be held and questioned beyond the glare of judicial scrutiny.

President Obama has made the closing of the detention facility a priority. But as Guantánamo is being drawn down, large-scale construction is under way at a US military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan...


...An estimated 242 prisoners remain at Guantánamo. In contrast, more than 600 are held at Bagram, and efforts are under way to expand facilities to potentially hold as many as 1,100 terror suspects.

With the US about to escalate the war in Afghanistan, the Bagram prison is likely to play a more visible and important role in that conflict..."