Pentagon Bans Four Journalists From Guantanamo Bay for Reporting Interrogator #1’s Name

[cal04]

http://washingtonindependent.com/84200/pentagon-bans-four-journalists-from-guantanamo-bay-for-reporting-interrogator-1s-name

Two weeks’ worth of proceedings in the pre-trial hearing of Omar Khadr found an unexpected meta-conclusion this afternoon as the public affairs shop in the Office of the Secretary of Defense banned four reporters from returning to Guantanamo Bay. Their offense: reporting the name of a witness whose identity is under a protective order.

The four journalists are Michelle Shephard of the Toronto Star, Steven Edwards of Canwest, Paul Koring of the Globe & Mail and Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald. They are not being thrown off the base, but, as of now, they are barred from returning.

A letter written by an official in the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s public affairs division specified that each had published the name of a witness who testified to the military commissions today under the name “Interrogator #1.” Identifying information about that interrogator was entered into the record of the hearing during open court testimony by both the prosecution and the defense. Ironically, the letter confirmed that witness’s identity.

While the judge in the case, Col. Patrick Parrish, issued an admonition yesterday for reporters to respect the anonymity of the classified witnesses, he did not rule that any reporter here had violated the protected order. The decision to block the four reporters from returning to Guantanamo Bay is a matter of policy from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. And those four are not the only ones within the press corps here to have reported Interrogator #1’s name.


BANNED
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2010/05/banned.php?ref=fpblg
David Kurtz
Spencer Ackerman reports from Guantanamo this evening that the Pentagon has banned four of the most experienced journalists covering the detention facility after they reported the classified name of an interrogator who testified as a witness this week in the pre-trial hearing of a detainee before the military