Judge Furious Over Mysterious Censors at Guantanamo Bay Trials

[unhappycamper]

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/02/01-4



Observers watch the Sept. 11 hearings from a viewing gallery at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Judge Furious Over Mysterious Censors at Guantanamo Bay Trials
- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer
Published on Friday, February 1, 2013 by Common Dreams

A military judge presiding over a pretrial hearing at the Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base ordered an end to a secretive U.S. government agency's censorship of what the media can and can't hear in the courtroom, following an unexpected blackout of hearings earlier this week.

On Monday, sound from the courtroom that feeds into a soundproof media booth and through a feed to journalists in closed-circuit viewing sites on the US East Coast, was mysteriously cut during a discussion of a secret CIA prison—where the suspects of the 9/11 case, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants, were held and potentially tortured before transport to Guantánamo—leaving reporters and other observers in the dark for several key minutes of the discussion.

The judge, Army Colonel James Pohl, said the the information that had been blacked out was not officially confidential, and thus should not have been censored.

Pohl said earlier that he did not previously know there was anyone outside of the court that could censor the proceedings.

[another_liberal]

1. I knew that Homeland Security . . .

I knew the Department of Homeland Security could listen to anyone they want to at the push of a button. I did not know they could also silence anyone they want to in the same way.