Majid Khan's Catch-22
Two months ago, TalkLeft introduced you to Majid Khan, a Baltimore resident who was detained in secret overseas prisons before he was moved to Guantanamo. Earlier this month, TalkLeft chided the government's effort to preclude Khan's defense lawyers from talking to him.
An editorial in today's Appleton Post-Crescent takes up the cause:
The reason [for preventing contact between attorney and client], as offered by an "information review officer for the National Clandestine Service," is because he was held in a "top secret" program and "may have come into possession of information, including locations of detention, conditions of detention and alternative interrogation techniques." And the government wouldn't want his attorney to reveal any of that information in court because of national security.So the U.S. captured Khan, put him in a hiding spot for three years, finally allowed him legal representation to — we presume — defend himself, but doesn't let him talk to that legal representation because the U.S. captured him and put him in a hiding spot for three years.
Give it up, President Bush. When you've lost Appleton, Wisconsin, you've lost pretty much everyone.
The editorial's closing words:
[T]o simply capture people from around the world with some vague accusations about being involved in terror and essentially erase their humanity — their very existence — without due process is un-American, plain and simple.
And holding them responsible for being captured by us with no charge, put in our secret prisons and "interrogated" by us is self-serving and totalitarian, actions that are more reminiscent of the very regimes we rail against than our own proud justice system.
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