The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged September 11

The ‘Deboogeymanification’ of Terror Suspects

By | 11.17.09 | 12:22 pm

On his MSNBC morning show today, Dylan Ratigan asked me if I thought the decision to bring the suspected 9/11 co-conspirators to trial in a New York federal court was an attempt to “deboogeymanificate” those notorious terrorists we’ve heard so much about. After all, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed More…

Holder Will Seek Death Penalty in 9/11 Trials in N.Y. Federal Court

By | 11.13.09 | 11:58 am

Attorney General Eric Holder just announced that he will seek the death penalty for the five 9/11 terror suspects. They will be tried in a New York federal court, as reported earlier this morning.

KSM and 9/11 Co-Conspirators to Face Trial in N.Y. Federal Court

By | 11.13.09 | 9:21 am

After much delay and speculation, the Obama administration has reportedly decided to try the alleged co-conspirators of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in a civilian federal court in New York. That’s a significant defeat for some lawmakers, who had hoped to ban the men from civilian courts More…

Government Settles Case Charging Abuse of Post-9/11 Detainees

By | 11.05.09 | 10:21 am

The U.S. government has agreed to pay a total of $1.26 million dollars to five men who claim they were illegally detained and mistreated after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, as part of a settlement agreement reached between the Justice Department and the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Obama Signs Law Authorizing Suppression of Torture Photos

By | 10.29.09 | 6:33 pm

Among other things in the Homeland Security appropriations bill President Obama signed into law yesterday is a provision that authorizes the Defense Department to continue to conceal photos of the torture and abuse of detainees by U.S. forces. The American Civil Liberties Union had More…

Social Worker Raided for Rioting on Twitter Wants His Pickaxes Back

By | 10.27.09 | 10:45 am

This seems almost too weird to be true, but Wired reports that on Oct. 1, federal agents seized the computers, manuscripts and pickaxes of an anarchist social worker in Queens, N.Y., claiming he violating anti-rioting laws on Twitter.

Government Planning to Prosecute About 25 Gitmo Detainees in Federal Court

By | 10.26.09 | 6:00 am

The Obama administration is making plans to send about 25 detainees from the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay to federal prisons, to be tried in civilian federal courts, according to Newsweek.

As TWI reported last week, the biggest ongoing controversy is over where to More…

DOJ Bashing of Watchdog Group Could Backfire

By | 10.20.09 | 8:52 am

In late September, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC, a widely respected data research and analysis organization affiliated with Syracuse University, issued a report based on its analysis of extensive federal government records regarding terrorism cases. It concluded that eight years after the Sept. 11 More…

More on the Congressional Move to Amend FOIA, Hide Torture Photos

By | 10.15.09 | 1:56 pm

To follow up on my earlier post about Rep. Louis Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and her speech on her colleagues’ move to amend the Freedom of Information Act to prevent the release of photographs depicting abuse of detainees in U.S. custody, it’s worth looking at the conference report More…

U.S. Prison Conditions Far Worse Than Guantanamo’s

By | 10.05.09 | 8:16 am

By refusing to allow Guantanamo detainees to be transferred anywhere in the United States, including its supermax prisons, those representatives in Congress eagerly fighting to keep the prison in Cuba open may unintentionally be easing the lives of terror suspects.

Last Thursday, the House of Representatives voted 258-163 More…