Not Just State Secrets: Obama Continuing Bush's Stonewalling On Gitmo Cases, Lawyer Claims

[ProSense]

Not Just State Secrets: Obama Continuing Bush's Stonewalling On Gitmo Cases, Lawyer Claims

By Zachary Roth - April 10, 2009

Yesterday we told you about the Obama Justice Department's invocation of a sweeping state secrets privilege in a warrantless wiretapping case. But that may not be the only area in which the new administration's war on terror tactics recall the worst excesses of the Bush years.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that detainees at Guantanamo had the right to appeal their detentions in federal courts. But since then, only a few cases have been completed. And in an interview with TPMmuckraker, David Cynamon -- a lawyer for four Kuwaiti Gitmo detainees who are bringing habeas corpus claims against the government -- said that the Justice Department has been consistently dragging its heels in the case, denying detainees their basic due process rights and furthering what he called the "abandonment of the rule of law."

"The Department of Justice has been doing everything in its power to delay and obstruct these cases," said Cynamon, whose clients were picked up in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region in the period after the 2001 U.S invasion of Afghanistan. "They're not doing anything to move the case along, and doing everything to avoid it."

Asked whether he had observed a shift of any kind in the government's approach since the Obama administration came into office, Cynamon flatly replied: "None whatsoever."

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[ThomWV]

1. Its looking like a real house-cleaning is needed at the Department of Justice

Seriously, there needs to be a real cleaning out of what seems to have become the national cesspool.

[jody]

4. I voted for a "real house-cleaning" in the Oval Office -- hasn't happened. n/t

[Sarah Ibarruri]

2. I love Obama, but I think he made some agreements with the pigs that just left office...

We must keep pushing.

[ProSense]

5. Interesting. n/t

[ima_sinnic]

3. Obama blatantly LIED about this issue. He said habeas would be restored asap,

and that detainees would be released (how can they be "tried," since they have been tortured?).
Some "constitutional scholar." What a FRAUD.

ffft. never again will I vote for him.

[Sarah Ibarruri]

6. Honestly? I don't think he lied. He never said he'd prosecute these people

He needs to prosecute them. However, I think some deals were made.