War on Terror: One Step Forward, One Step Back

In a victory for anyone who believes in core American values, the Defense Department has handed over documents containing the names of detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay military prison after four years of secrecy.

The release was the result of a lawsuit by the Associated Press, which had filed Freedom of Information Act requests for the names that had been rejected by the Pentagon.

The Bush administration had hidden the identities, home countries and other information about the men, who were accused of having links to the Taliban or Al Qaeda. But a federal judge rejected the administration's ridiculous arguments that releasing the identities would violate the detainees' privacy and could endanger them and their families.

(I'm somewhat familiar with FoIA myself, having filed over 600 such requests during my long career in newspapering. The few instances in which I was turned down pertained to Vietnam War POWs and MIAs, whose families the Pentagon wanted to protect. I couldn't disagree with that and later got the info I needed from POW-MIA organizations.)

For the whole story, go here. Meanwhile, Professor Bainbridge reprints a profile on the detainees and opines on their indefinite confinement.

Meanwhile, I was ranting just yesterday about the Bush administration's stand on torture of enemy combatants (see George Bush and the Clash of Civilizations). Bush eventually signed a law outlawing torture while at the same time holding his nose and sticking out his tongue, but his obdurance apparently doesn't matter.

The bad news comes in a Washington Post story via Pecunium at Live Journal. The relevant grafs:

In federal court yesterday and in legal filings, Justice Department lawyers contended that a detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, cannot use legislation drafted by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to challenge treatment that the detainee's lawyers described as "systematic torture."

. . . "Unfortunately, I think the government's right; it's a correct reading of the law," said Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "The law says you can't torture detainees at Guantanamo, but it also says you can't enforce that law in the courts."

Did McCain, sponsor of the bill, know something that I and other supporters didn't? Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly believes so.