Let's Support All the Lawyers
Brian Doherty | January 30, 2007, 12:39pm
A Pentagon official tries to shame American corporations who do business with law firms who are also defending Guantanamo detainees; it doesn't work. From
a Boston Globe account:
In a radio interview, [Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs Charles D. "Cully""] Stimson stated the names of a dozen law firms that volunteer their services to represent detainees, and he suggested that the chief executives of the firms' corporate clients would make the lawyers "choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms."
He said he expected the newly public list of law firms that do work at Guantanamo Bay to spark a cycle of negative publicity for them. Instead, Stimson himself became the center of nationwide criticism and later apologized for the remarks.
After quoting corporate representatives from General Electric and Boston Scientific Corp. specifically who are standing by their firm, the story goes to one of the accursed attorneys:
"It would seem [the Pentagon] made a miscalculation," said Stephen Oleskey , an attorney at WilmerHale in Boston who has traveled to Guantanamo Bay seven times since he took up the case in 2004. "We haven't had any clients call up and say, 'We are really deeply disturbed that you are advocating for fair hearings.' The amount of support [we have gotten] has been heartening."
terrorwatch | January 30, 2007, 1:10pm | #
The article below appeared in the TIMES, London, in Dec. 2001: Since the suspected terrorists were Israelis, two things happened: One, they were released instead of being sent to Guantanamo like many hapless Muslims against whom there is far less evidence, and two, the story never made it to FOX or CNN.
If Muslims had been caught with that sort of evidence, they would have had life sentences by now.
WASHINGTON - With America on top security alert, the FBI was hunting yesterday for six men of Middle Eastern appearance carrying plans of a nuclear power plant and the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline who were picked up by police in the Midwest over the weekend but then released.
The incident is thought to be connected with the latest FBI alert and senior intelligence officials are furious that the men were set free before they could be fully questioned.
The men were travelling in two groups of three in white saloon cars when they were pulled over by police officers in the Midwest, according to the Knight Ridder News Service. Security officials have refused to disclose further details.
The men were searched and questioned and the state officers discovered detailed plans and photographs of a nuclear power plant in Florida, along with box cutters-the weapons used in the September 11 attacks- and other equipment.
The men, who appeared to be of Middle Eastern origin and held Israeli passports, were then interviewed by immigration officials. When their passports and visas were found to be in order the officers, who were not aware of the country's imminent security alert, let the men go without first calling in the FBI to question them more thoroughly.
It is not clear why the men were pulled over in the first place nor why intelligence officers were not given a chance to interview them. Agents suspect that the men will by now have switched cars and tried to flee the country, possibly to Canada.
Intelligence officials were especially concerned about the nuclear plant details. America's nuclear facilities received special attention in the latest FBI alert. The men were also carrying plans of the 800-mile Trans-Alaska pipeline, which delivers 17 per cent of America's oil.
There are three nuclear facilities in Florida, which have now been advised to step up security. One of the plants has called in local police as an extra security precaution.
The news came as the US banned private flights near US nuclear facilities for the next ten days, in connection with the warning of another terrorist attack, and National Guard troops were deployed at nuclear power plants in three southern states. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission ordered the nation's 103 nuclear power plants to increase security.
At a time when police have unprecedented powers to arrest and detain people who are merely suspected of having links to terrorist activities, the release of these six men has infuriated the FBI.
