News outlets appeal Pentagon's ban on Guantanamo coverage

[kpete]

Source: McClatchy

News outlets appeal Pentagon's ban on Guantanamo coverage

Arguing that a Pentagon order banning four journalists from covering military commissions at Guantanamo Bay was illegal and unconstitutional, The Miami Herald and two Canadian news outlets appealed on Wednesday.

While covering a hearing last week to determine the admissibility of confessions made by Canadian detainee Omar Khadr, four journalists from The Herald, which is owned by McClatchy, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and Can-West Newspapers of Canada printed the name of a witness who had been identified at the hearing as "Interrogator No. 1.'' The witness, Joshua Claus, had been convicted by a U.S. military jury of detainee abuse in 2005 and sentenced to five months in prison. His role as Khadr's interrogator had been known since 2008, when it was first revealed by a judge at Guantanamo. He later gave an on-the-record interview to the Toronto Star.

The Pentagon, however, said the reporters had violated ground rules for being permitted to cover military tribunals by revealing Interrogator No. 1's name in dispatches preceding his testimony and said they would not be permitted to cover future military commission hearings.

The four reporters include Miami Herald correspondent Carol Rosenberg, who has covered the Guantanamo detention facility since it opened in 2002.



Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/05/13/94071/papers-appeal-pentagons-ban-opn.html

[happygoluckytoyou]

1. sorry canada, the USofA only believes in transparent stuff when it is in OUR interests