america.aljazeera.com
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Al Jazeera America has obtained the personal writings of one of the highest-value detainees at Guantanamo Bay detention camp
Jason Leopold
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View as a gridA Justice Department Memo Provides the CIA's Legal Justification to Kill a US Citizen | VICE News
Vice
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"This white paper sets forth the legal basis upon which the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) could use lethal force in Yemen against a United States citizen who senior officials reasonably determined was a senior leader of al-Qaida or an associated force of al-Qaida." So begins a 22-page, heavily redacted, previously top-secret document titled "Legality of a Lethal Operation by the Central Intelligence Agency Against a US Citizen," which provides the first detailed look at the legal rationale behind lethal operations conducted by the agency. The white paper [pdf below] was turned over to VICE News in response to a long-running Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Justice Department.
Revealed: Inside the Senate report on CIA interrogations | Al Jazeera America
Al Jazeera
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A still-classified report on the CIA's interrogation program established in the wake of 9/11 sparked a furious row last week between the agency and Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein. Al Jazeera has learned from sources familiar with its contents that the committee's report alleges that at least one high-value detainee was subjected to torture techniques that went beyond those authorized by George W. Bush's Justice Department. Two Senate staffers and a U.S.
Sold Into "a Piece of Hell:" A Death of Innocence at Gitmo
truth-out.org
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Sold for a $5,000 bounty, Adnan Latif was among the first prisoners detained at Guantanamo . A federal judge and two presidential administrations said he didn't belong there. A decade later he left in a box - and no one will say why. "Ya Baba! Ya Baba!" Ezzi Deen shouted in Arabic. The 14-year-old boy was crying out for his father. He last uttered those words as a toddler. Ezzi Deen never received a response then, either. He remained connected to his father through pictures and letters that trickled into his home from the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Revised Guantanamo force-feed policy exposed
www.aljazeera.com
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Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - Hunger striking Guantanamo prisoners who are force-fed a liquid nutritional supplement undergo a brutal and dehumanising medical procedure that requires them to wear masks over their mouths while they sit shackled in a restraint chair for as long as two hours, according to documentation obtained by Al Jazeera. The prisoners remain this way, with a 61cm - or longer - tube snaked through their nostril until a chest X-ray, or a test dose of water, confirms it has reached their stomach. At the end of the feeding, the prisoner is removed from the restraint chair and placed into a "dry cell" with no running water.
Widespread Breakdown of Safeguards at Gitmo
www.aljazeera.com
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On more than a dozen occasions over the course of eight years, Adnan Latif complained to his attorney that his American captors forced him to take medications that left him feeling like "a zombie." The 36-year-old Guantanamo prisoner, who died there last year in a high-security cell, claimed he was injected with unknown substances while he slept and plied with pills whenever the guards deemed him to be unruly, which appeared to be often. The military repeatedly dismissed Latif's allegations as the paranoid ramblings of a difficult and brain-damaged terror suspect. But it turns out his story was true - and only the tip of a still-submerged iceberg.
Revealed: The 95 FOIA Requests Flagged for Pentagon Approval
pressfreedomfoundation.org
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A few weeks ago, the nonpartisan organization Cause of Action posted a story on its website about a secret Pentagon policy that calls for certain Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that may generate media attention to first be approved by the Pentagon.
Inmates Rising: Worsening Gitmo Mass Hunger Strike in Prisoners' Own Words
www.truth-out.org
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Abdulsalam Al-Hela does not understand why he and other Guantanamo prisoners reside in a perpetual state of legal limbo. "Can it really be true that US, with all its power, all over the world, can't solve the problems of 100 men?" he asked his attorney, David Remes, during a meeting in early March. "Yes," Remes told the Yemeni prisoner. "It's true." No one knows what to do with these living artifacts of a post-9/11 world. Some are waiting to stand trial for war crimes. Others - more than half - have been cleared by the US government to be returned to their homelands or other countries.
A Guantanamo Tour: 'Much Ado About Nothing'?
www.aljazeera.com
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Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - A bearded man in white appeared in the narrow window that faced the gravel walkway leading to the world's most famous detention camp. He stood without a word, surveying the scene outside, where Army guards were unloading containers from a van and stacking them onto a dolly. Inside were Styrofoam clamshells that held the morning's breakfast meals - cereal, fruit and nutrition bars that soon would be rejected and tossed into the garbage. A few hundred feet away, beyond the razor-wired fence, buses dropped off dozens of nameless Army guards reporting for a new day of duty at Gitmo.
EXCLUSIVE: From Hopeful Immigrant to FBI Informant - the Inside Story of the Other Abu Zubaidah
truth-out.org
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WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Meet the brother of the first high-value detainee; he came to the US to pursue the American dream, spent two years in an immigration jail following the 9/11 attacks and was then recruited by the FBI to spy on Muslims. This investigative report is also available for download as an ebook. Hesham opened the envelope at the bar, expecting a green card. Instead, it was a subpoena from a federal prosecutor, which would force him to testify--against his brother. He thought about fleeing to Norway or Poland with his wife and daughter.
So Then the FBI Sent Out an Agent to Check Up on My FOIA Request ...
truth-out.org
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Early last year, I discovered that Abu Zubaidah, the first high-value detainee who was held in top-secret CIA black site prisons and brutally tortured, has a younger brother who lives in the United States. Research I was conducting on the accused terrorist led me to a three-year-old comment posted on Guantanamo reporter Andy Worthington's blog about Abu Zubaidah, the alleged terrorist, left by someone who identified himself as Hesham Abu Zubaidah. "Yes that is my brother and I live in Oregon," the commenter said. "Do you think I should have been locked away for 2 years with no charges for a [sic] act of a sibling?
A "Victory" in My FOIA Lawsuit Against the FBI
truth-out.org
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Founding director of the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Office of Information Policy calls FBI actions "an embarrassment of major proportion." Nearly four years after changes to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) went into effect, the FBI, in response to a lawsuit in which I am a co-plaintiff, said the bureau would now begin to abide by a little-known provision in the law that requires all government agencies, when asked, to provide estimated dates of completion to records requesters. Last February, the Arlington, Virginia-based public interest law firm National Security Counselors, and I sued the FBI and other government agencies for refusing to provide us with estimated dates of completion on our FOIA requests.
EXCLUSIVE: DoD Report Reveals Some Detainees Interrogated While Drugged, Others "Chemically Restr...
truth-out.org
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Detainees in custody of the US military were interrogated while drugged with powerful antipsychotic and other medications that "could impair an individual's ability to provide accurate information," according to a declassified Department of Defense (DoD) inspector general's report that probed the alleged use of "mind altering drugs" during interrogations. In addition, detainees were subjected to "chemical restraints," hydrated with intravenous (IV) fluids while they were being interrogated and, in what appears to be a form of psychological manipulation, the inspector general's probe confirmed at least one detainee - convicted terrorist supporter Jose Padilla - was the subject of a "deliberate ruse" in which his interrogator led him to believe he was given an injection of "truth serum."
EXCLUSIVE: Controversial Drug Given to All Guantanamo Detainees Akin to "Pharmacologic Waterboard...
www.truth-out.org
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The Defense Department forced all "war on terror" detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison to take a high dosage of a controversial antimalarial drug, mefloquine, an act that an Army public health physician called "pharmacologic waterboarding." The US military administered the drug despite Pentagon knowledge that mefloquine caused severe neuropsychiatric side effects, including suicidal thoughts, hallucinations and anxiety. The drug was used on the prisoners whether they had malaria or not. Interviews conducted over the past two months with tropical disease experts and a review of Defense Department documents and peer-reviewed journals show there were no preexisting cases where mefloquine was ever prescribed for mass presumptive treatment of malaria.
EXCLUSIVE: "Guidebook to False Confessions": Key Document John Yoo Used to Draft Torture Memo Rel...
truth-out.org
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In May of 2002, one of several meetings was convened at the White House where the CIA sought permission from top Bush administration officials, including then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, to torture the agency's first high-value detainee captured after 9/11: Abu Zubaydah. The CIA claimed Zubaydah, who at the time was being held at a black site prison in Thailand, was "withholding imminent threat information during the initial interrogation sessions," according to documents released by the Senate Intelligence Committee in April 2009.
EXCLUSIVE: CIA Psychologist's Notes Reveal True Purpose Behind Bush's Torture Program
truth-out.org
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Dr. Bruce Jessen's handwritten notes describe some of the torture techniques that were used to "exploit" "war on terror" detainees in custody of the CIA and Department of Defense. Bush administration officials have long asserted that the torture techniques used on "war on terror" detainees were utilized as a last resort in an effort to gain actionable intelligence to thwart pending terrorist attacks against the United States and its interests abroad.
EXCLUSIVE: Why Did US Medical Personnel Remove High-Value Detainee Abu Zubaydah's Eye?
truth-out.org
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Shortly after he was captured in March 2002 at a safe house in Faisalabad, Pakistan, following an early morning raid jointly conducted by the CIA, FBI, Pakistani police and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Abu Zubaydah woke up at a black site prison in Thailand and discovered that his left eye had been surgically removed. Zubaydah, who is wearing an eye patch in a photograph included in his Guantanamo threat assessment file released by WikiLeaks last month, apparently never consented to the medical procedure and to this day has no idea why it was done, according to one of Zubaydah's attorneys.
Air Force Pulls "Jesus Loves Nukes" Ethics Training After Publication of Truthout Report
truth-out.org
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The Air Force, in response to an exclusive report published by Truthout earlier this week, has withdrawn materials used in a training session that relied upon Bible passages and a quote from an ex-Nazi SS officer to teach missile officers about the morals and ethics of launching nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare training "has been taken out of the curriculum and is being reviewed," said David Smith, chief of public affairs of Air Education and Training Command at Randolph Air Force Base in Texas. "The commander reviewed it and decided we needed to have a good hard look at it and make sure it reflected views of modern society."
EXCLUSIVE: Documents, Employees Reveal BP's Alaska Oilfield Plagued By Major Safety Issues
truth-out.org
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Nearly 5,000 miles from the oil-spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, BP and its culture of cost-cutting are contributing to another environmental mess. According to internal BP documents obtained by Truthout, and after interviewing more than a dozen employees over the past month, the Prudhoe Bay oil field, in a remote corner of North America on Alaska's north shore, is in danger. After a serious oil spill last November and other mishaps, the BP employees fingered a long list of safety issues that have not been adequately addressed, making the Prudhoe Bay oilfield vulnerable to a devastating accident that potentially could rival the havoc in the Gulf.
Alyeska CEO Resigns Following Truthout Expose
truth-out.org
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Kevin Hostler, the chief executive officer of Alyeska Pipeline, informed employees at the company Wednesday morning that he "plans to retire to Houston and to spend time with his family." The announcement comes one day after Truthout published an extensive investigative report that was highly critical of his leadership of the company and revealed details of alleged mismanagement based on information obtained from senior Alyeska officials and hundreds of pages of internal documents. Over the past several months, Alyeska Pipeline and Hostler have been under intense scrutiny by a Congressional oversight committee and an independent investigator, who has been probing explosive allegations leveled by managers that severe cost-cutting efforts could put the integrity of the 800-mile TAPS line at risk.
Whistleblower: BP Risks More Massive Catastrophes in Gulf
www.truth-out.org
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British Petroleum (BP) has broken federal laws and violated its own internal procedures by failing to maintain crucial safety and engineering documents related to one of the firms other deepwater production projects in the Gulf of Mexico, a former contractor who worked for the oil behemoth claimed in internal emails and other documents obtained by Truthout. The whistleblower, whose name has been withheld at the person's request because the whistleblower still works in the oil industry and fears retaliation, first raised concerns about safety issues related to BP Atlantis, the world's largest and deepest semi-submersible oil and natural gas platform, located about 200 miles south of New Orleans, in November 2008.