Follow Up: AP Fires Back, Says Its Probe Clears Iraqi Photog (E&P)

Editor & Publisher, 2007-11-21

A series of accusations raised by the U.S. military against an Associated Press photographer detained for 19 months in Iraq are false or meaningless, according to an intensive AP investigation of the case made public Wednesday.

Evidence and testimony collected by the AP shows no support for allegations that Bilal Hussein took part in insurgent activities or bomb-making, and few of the images he provided dealt directly with Iraqi insurgents.

"Despite the fact that Hussein has not been interrogated since May 2006, allegations have been dropped or modified over time, and new claims added, all without any explanation," said the 48-page report compiled by lawyer and former federal prosecutor Paul Gardephe.

The rest of the story: Editor & Publisher

The Free Press: AP Lawyers Will Go to Iraq Next Week to Defend Photographer (E&P)

Press Group Raises Concerns

by Joe Strupp (Editor & Publisher, 2007-11-21)

Associated Press Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll believes AP photographer Bilal Hussein, who finally may be charged with unspecified alleged terrorist crimes in Iraq, can get a fair trial there.

But she stressed that the U.S. military's failure to provide AP with specific information or evidence related to charges may well hamper efforts to mount a defense and ultimately free Hussein, whom AP contends is innocent.

"I have no reason to think the Iraqi court system will be anything but fair and impartial," Carroll told E&P a day after AP revealed charges had been brought. "But they can only be impartial about what is presented to them. If one side has evidence and the other side doesn't know what it is, how can we defend Bilal? They have told our lawyers they will find out specifics when the complaint is filed next week."

Carroll's comments come a day after Hussein, 36, who has been held by U.S. and Iraqi military officials in Baghdad since April 2006, received word that the U.S. military planned to seek a criminal complaint against him. An AFP report late Monday stated the complaint accused Hussein of being "a terrorist media operative" who had "infiltrated the AP."

Dave Tomlin, AP associate general counsel, said such language is not new, noting the military had used such vague phrasing for months to describe Hussein, but without substantial evidence or specific incidents that have not been refuted.

"We continue not to have heard anything that would be grounds for a charge," Tomlin said. "What is new this week is that after months of stonewalling, they propose on less than two weeks notice to drag him into a court room."

The rest of the story: Editor & Publisher

Justice: Respected Marine Lawyer Alleges Military Injustices

A long profile by Daniel Zwerdling of Colby Vokey, the Marine Corps' top defense attorney, "pulled out of his position because he's doing too good a job....the people in Washington, D.C., don't like that." (NPR, 2007-10-30)

Congress: Another cave-in on civil liberties in the works

Democrats Seem Ready to Extend Wiretap Powers

by Eric Lichtblau and Carl Hulse (New York Times, 2007-10-09)

WASHINGTON, Oct. 8 — Two months after insisting that they would roll back broad eavesdropping powers won by the Bush administration, Democrats in Congress appear ready to make concessions that could extend some crucial powers given to the National Security Agency.

Administration officials say they are confident they will win approval of the broadened authority that they secured temporarily in August as Congress rushed toward recess. Some Democratic officials concede that they may not come up with enough votes to stop approval.

As the debate over the eavesdropping powers of the National Security Agency begins anew this week, the emerging measures reflect the reality confronting the Democrats.

Although willing to oppose the White House on the Iraq war, they remain nervous that they will be called soft on terrorism if they insist on strict curbs on gathering intelligence.

A Democratic bill to be proposed on Tuesday in the House would maintain for several years the type of broad, blanket authority for N.S.A eavesdropping that the administration secured in August for six months.

In an acknowledgment of concerns over civil liberties, the bill would require a more active role by the special foreign intelligence court that oversees the interception of foreign-based communications by the security agency.

A competing proposal in the Senate, still being drafted, may be even closer in line with the administration plan, with the possibility of including retroactive immunity for telecommunications utilities that participated in the once-secret program to eavesdrop without court warrants.

The rest of the story: The New York Times

Intelligence: Bush and bin Laden

Far From Declining, Al Qaeda Has Rebuilt, With Fresh Faces and a Vigorous Media Arm

by Hal Brown (Capital Hill Blue, 2007-09-09)

Is it too much to hope that Bush will read the long Washington Post front page article about Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda? Would spending ten - okay 30 - minutes reading about this most dangerous of world leaders and his mercurial country (aka al Qaeda) be too much of an effort for him? If Bush really believes "we are fighting them there (Iraq) so we don't have to fight them here," he needs a stiff dose of reality.

The rest of the story:

The New Al Qaeda Central by Craig Whitlock (The Washington Post, 2007-09-09)
Hal Brown's commentary (Capital Hill Blue 2007-09-10)

Interest growing in plight of journalist held at Gitmo

Why have detainees been held at Guantánamo for six years without a mechanism to fairly determine whether they belong there?

From Prisoner 345: What happened to Al Jazeera’s Sami al-Haj in the July/August 2007 edition of the Columbia Journalism Review:

"Despite the novelty of [Sami] al-Haj’s status as the only journalist inside Guantánamo, it was a long time before he attracted much media attention. At first, even Al Jazeera was reluctant to cover his story. 'Up until around 2003, the air was very tense. You didn’t really want to investigate it too much,' said Ahmad Ibrahim, an Al Jazeera producer who has researched al-Haj’s case. 'At least to a lot of people around the world, holding people was probably justifiable due to the enormity of 9/11. And in the Arab world, the situation at Guantánamo was difficult to comprehend or believe, even that any kind of torture would be perpetrated by the U.S. A lot of people didn’t comprehend what Guantánamo stood for, and the legal arguments that were used to justify it.' In 2005, Ibrahim invited Stafford Smith to Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha. 'That’s when the big interest in Sami and his plight started.'

"Since then, al-Haj has become a cause célèbre in the Arab world. Ibrahim made a forty-five-minute documentary about him, Prisoner 345, and Al Jazeera regularly reports on his case. Al-Haj has also been featured in several stories in the British press. But despite repeated efforts by Ibrahim and Stafford Smith, there was until very recently almost no coverage of al-Haj in the U.S., apart from a New York Times column last October by Nicholas Kristof. Al Jazeera 'is still perceived in a very negative way' in the U.S., said Joel Campagna of the Committee to Protect Journalists. 'I think that has made people pause when looking at this case.'

"But while some journalists may distrust Al Jazeera, or may have believed Donald Rumsfeld’s discredited claim that the inmates represented the 'worst of the worst,' others may have avoided writing about detainees like al-Haj because of a more mundane bias: the simple difficulty of reporting about Guantánamo. It’s often been noted that the lopsided legal process fashioned by the Bush administration makes it virtually impossible for detainees to defend themselves. A lesser noticed consequence is that the withholding of evidence makes it impossible for journalists to write a conventionally 'balanced' story about individual detainees—and hence, they are less likely to write about them at all. While researching this piece, for instance, I’ve had plenty of access to al-Haj’s lawyer and to Al Jazeera, but none to the Department of Defense or al-Haj himself. This imbalance is uncomfortable, but to be deterred by it would be to miss the point. The central question underlying the case of al-Haj and the other detainees is not their guilt or innocence, but why they have been held at Guantánamo for six years without a mechanism to fairly determine whether they belong there."

The rest of the story: The Columbia Journalism Review

The War on Terror: Report blasts U.S. for failures in fighting terrorism

CNN reports:

A just-released report slams the federal government for failing to coordinate the work of U.S. law enforcement agencies overseas to fight terrorism.

The Government Accountability Office found that in one country a lack of clarity about the roles and responsibilities of the FBI and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency may have compromised several investigations intended to identify and disrupt potential terrorist activities.

The GAO did not name the country in its report.

The White House has long issued directives asking that U.S. law enforcement agencies assist foreign nations' anti-terrorism efforts.

But the report finds that embassy and law enforcement officials told the GAO "they had received little or no guidance" on how to accomplish that.

The issue of roles and responsibilities "remains unresolved and is still subject to ongoing debates within the administration," it said.

The 2003 National Strategy for Combating Terrorism instructed the State Department to develop and coordinate U.S. counterterrorism policy abroad, but the report says that was not done.

The 2004 Intelligence Reform Act shifted that responsibility to the National Counterterrorism Center and, although a general plan has been drafted, it has not yet been implemented.

"As a result of these weaknesses, LEAs [law enforcement agencies], a key element of national power, are not being fully used abroad to protect U.S. citizens and interest from future terrorist attacks," the GAO concluded.

The rest of the story: CNN