Military Unusually Secretive in Spy Case

WASHINGTON -- Military authorities have taken unusual steps to protect evidence in an espionage investigation at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, including classifying routine court documents and forcing visiting reporters to promise in writing not to ask about the case.

Air Force officers tried to close to the public a preliminary hearing for Senior Airman Ahmad I. al-Halabi, an Air Force translator facing 32 charges including espionage. His lawyers challenged the closure in the Air Force Court of Criminal Appeals, and the judges agreed to close only parts of the hearing that dealt with classified information.

Court staff refused to give out copies of the ruling, relying on Air Force officials to do so. The copies the Air Force released have signatures of court officials and telephone numbers of al-Halabi's defense lawyers blacked out.

The recommendations of the officer who presided over that hearing, Col. Anne Burman, also are classified. Reporters traveling to the prison camp in Cuba this week were required to sign a pledge not to ask questions about the investigation.

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-guantanamo-arrests-secrecy,0,6151729.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

How on earth will we ever learn if this is a legitmate probe or something just set up to go on until 2004? I believe nothing that comes from this administration or John Asscroft. Those boys have cried wolf too many times.

When they won't release any more information than they have, and you know that at least half of everything they say is a lie, there is no way a knowledgeable person can trust anything they say.

It sounded like the chaplain they arrested had documents regarding treatment of prisoners. I am sure that the government would not want that to get out.

they were letters to family. I'm not saying that's all they had- I heard something about diagrams on the news and that doesn't sound good- but with such secrecy, everything the govt does goes down a black hole.

...to each "detained" individual in the facility.

Then again, maybe that stuff was planted in his living quarters. After all, he did study Islam in Syria and that is one of the PNACers next set of targets.

And we've been told that those Muslim chaplains are a radical lot, haven't we? Why, they're so radical they were able to obtain clearances to minister to the "detainees" at Gitmo! Oh, wait...