Just as the Pentagon is requesting an additional $450 million in funding to keep the detention center running, the administration seems ready to push for the transfer of prisoners to their home country.“The president is considering a range of options for ways that we can reduce the population there and move towards ultimate closure – some of which we can take on our own, but some of which will require working with the Congress,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday.Obama, who has long placed blame on Congress for the continued presence of detainees at Guantanamo, made the closure of the military facility a campaign pledge during his 2008 run.”That’s an excuse,” said Andrea Prasow, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch.”We’re at the point now where I think the president realizes he has to take what action he can before he works with Congress. They’ll be more amenable once they’ve seen he’s actually done something,” added Prasow.Lifting the ban on Gitmo-Yemen transfers? Currently, of the 166 detainees still held at Guantanamo 86 have already been cleared for transfer, including 56 Yemenis, who constitute the largest single group. The Pentagon has thus far transferred only a handful of detainees whose release has been ordered by courts.The administration had specifically halted transfers to Yemen following the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner by members of a Yemen branch of Al-Qaeda in December 2009.In a letter addressed to national security adviser Tom Donilon in late April Senator Feinstein had requested resumption of transfers of detainees to Yemen, citing continued support by that country’s president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, in continued operations against Al-Qaeda. In the last few years, Yemen has become a primary theater of operations by the US in drone strikes against terrorist targets.Although Al Qaeda “still has a strong presence in Yemen, I believe it would be prudent to revisit the decision to halt transfers to Yemen and assess whether President Hadi’s government, with appropriate assistance, would be able to securely hold detainees in Sana,” wrote Feinstein.According to the Wall Street Journal, resumption of transfers out of Guantanamo is likely to begin with non-Yemeni detainees, citing current and former officials. That would give Yemen’s government time to build up a rehabilitation and oversight program.Widespread hunger strike adds urgency Perhaps placing an even greater impetus on new policy for Guantanamo Bay is the ongoing hunger strike by 103 detainees, of which 31 are being forcibly fed through tubes.The hunger strike has resulted in a number of detainees being hospitalized within the base, and human rights groups have been increasingly vocal regarding the force feeding practice, which includes painful nasal tube inserts and restraints.Human rights advocates believe that detainees from Afghanistan could be among the first transferred out of Guantanamo. Per the WSJ, the US government has already been in talks with that country’s government regarding prisoner transfers.Supporters for the closure of the detention facility seem thus far cautious ahead of Obama’s Thursday speech.”He needs to make it clear he is serious this time. He promised the same thing four years ago. What makes this different? The transfers are what make this different,” said Prasow.Moreover, the announcement for a renewed push to wind down the prison is not likely to be received well by some lawmakers, such as Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte, who has spearheaded efforts to block transfers out of Guantanamo Bay.”We know there is significant Al-Qaeda activity in Yemen,” she said. “I obviously have some serious questions about Yemen.”Transfers out of Guantanamo slowed considerably in 2011 after Congress imposed tough requirements. As a result, there was a single transfer in 2011, four transfers in 2012 and none so far in 2013.Administration officials have said the president will finally fill a vacant State Department position tasked with overseeing the transfer of detainees, as well as recommend a review board to resume transferal cases.In January, the U.S. State Department re-assigned Daniel Fried, the special envoy who had been in charge of persuading countries to take Guantanamo inmates approved for transfer.That vacancy was viewed by both Guantanamo inmates and human rights group as a flagrant sign that the administration did not consider shuttering Guantanamo a priority. … Read More
Obama Won’t Apologize for AP Scandal
http://www.youtube.com/v/X0nbiHLmpCs?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Link: Obama Won’t Apologize for AP Scandal
Swedish photographer cleared of manipulation
Swedish photographer Paul Hansen, under fire for potentially doctoring his award-winning image from the Gaza funeral of two children, has been cleared by the World Press Photo organization that handed him its prestigious annual prize. … Read More
AP Scandal Finally Wakes Up an Aggressive Press Corps
http://www.youtube.com/v/MbJHP2CrAiw?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Link to article - AP Scandal Finally Wakes Up an Aggressive Press Corps
AP probe to have ‘horrific chilling effect on journalism’
RT: It’s thought that American investigators were looking for a potentially dangerous government leak – so wasn’t this justified in terms of national security?Tony Gosling: Due to the timing of these two months of telephone information that they’ve taken [from] over twenty phone lines, [it looks as if it was connected with] what is effectively war crimes by the CIA over in Yemen. The CIA’s view and the American military’s view is that there are all sorts of crimes going on by the Yemenis and the Associated Press had been exposing them. Actually, what’s been going on here in reality is that the Associated Press were exposing war crimes by people in their own country.What we’ve got here squaring up is the American military industrial complex, led in this case by the US attorney general Eric Holder. He is some kind of devil’s advocate; if you remember the film, he is that kind of a lawyer. He’s the first ever in American history to be held in contempt of Congress, so he has certainly not got his hands clean. On the other side is the tradition of a free press, and the effect of this massive trawl, effectively a fishing operation of months of AP telephone lines, is it has a horrific chilling effect on journalism. It also means that individuals, whistleblowers and people with stories can no longer trust the journalists. If they go with confidential information to those journalists and have confidential phone conversations, they are no longer guaranteed that those journalists can keep those conversations secret because the Justice Department is coming in with a massive trawl over a two-month period. One can understand if it’s a small investigation over a couple of days or a particular phone line possibly, but this is a fishing operation and an appalling attack on the freedom of the press in America by a government that is out of control.RT: Can journalists really be trusted – doesn’t the phone hacking scandal in the UK suggest otherwise?TG: I don’t think that the situation in Britain is quiet as difficult as it is over in the US at the moment. They are going to the line it seems with operations like this. What is effectively going on is that Eric Holder, who is a puppy-dog; he’s not really sticking up for the American people, he’s not doing his job. What he is doing is the job of the American military industrial complex, which is very frightened about actually being exposed by people like the Associated Press for the things that they are doing. We do have problems here in Britain, but it’s not quite as bad as in the US. Journalists and lawyers have to really watch out for governments that snoop on their information and have to stop it, stone dead.RT: AP has managed to put the Obama administration in a very embarrassing situation by exposing this surveillance web – so is this case ultimately a victory for the press?TG: Of course this does have to be exposed, but like I say, there is nothing that is going to stop this chilling effect, which is making it very difficult for journalists to keep their sources private. In this kind of situation, where the Justice Departments gets its hands on all those phone calls, that’s almost impossible. And of course, this is all is driven by the military industrial complex who have their eyes on the Middle East oil and the Yemini oil. This has nothing to do with trying to stop terrorism or anything like that. These are just those that are trying to stop the US from taking over oil deposits in the Middle East and effectively covering up for what is actually illegal activity.RT: If governments are worried about information being leaked by journalists, shouldn’t they be focusing on finding the source of that leak within their own ranks – rather than targeting the messenger?TG: You should never be targeting the messenger. The messengers are coming up with bad news and those in authority in the US don’t like it. It’s a similar situation in the UK. We have secret courts being brought in here in Britain. And ultimately this is the rise of a kind of police state where government thinks it can do what it wants. What we’re seeing is the erosion of some of the basic civil liberties that we’ve said for the last 30-40 years: ‘this is what we hold dear.’ We’re saying that ‘oh, these terrible Al-Qaeda and etc. are trying to take those civil liberties away’. But Al-Qaeda aren’t taking them away, our own governments are taking them away. Christopher Chambers, journalism professor from Georgetown University in the US, believes the reason behind the Justice Department investigation of AP is the government’s desire to have control over the flow of information covering it up by public safety concerns.“Especially when they perceive, rightly or wrongly that they are protecting the public from terrorism or some external threat or perhaps some internal threat. The problem is that that threat has not been articulated, has not been put out there as something that overrides this unprecedented intrusion,” he told RT.“The attorney general will have to explain a lot in the coming weeks. Otherwise it is further erosion of the trust that people have in their government, not only to protect them from outside threats but to protect them from the government itself.”The active intrusion into the press is unprecedented, Chamber maintains. “It’s an extension of some of the intrusions into the civil liberties that we saw after 9/11 attacks. The hypocrisy is that Barack Obama came into office decrying and attacking the abuses of the Bush administration, but is continuing them. That will be rather a political then a legal problem for him… Individuals and groups that supported him in the past are abandoning him right now.” … Read More
