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Lawyers for the suburban Baltimore Guantanamo detainee Majid Khan have asked that a federal court review their client’s detention and interrogation in secret CIA custody. Khan maintains he was a victim of state-sponsored torture. Earlier this week, an appeals court ordered the government not to destroy any evidence pertaining to Khan’s treatment. (McClatchy)

The Bush administration announced that it will take control of the promotions of military lawyers at Guantanamo Bay, less than a week after the prison camp’s legal adviser praised the military tribunal system there. Retired Major General Thomas Romig, the Army’s top JAG from 2001 to 2005, described the scheme as an effort “to control the military JAGs” by signaling that if they want a promotion they need to “bow to their political masters on legal advice.” (Boston Globe)

An apparently innocent man who was held at one of the CIA’s “black sites” gave a detailed description of his captivity, which lasted 19 months until he was released suddenly and without explanation. He tried to kill himself during captivity and the CIA put him in the care of mental health professionals who gave him pills and a Rubiks cube and told him not to give up hope. (Salon.com)

A subsidiary of Boeing, Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., now openly acknowledges its role in helping the CIA transport terrorism suspects to secret CIA prisons for “extraordinary rendition.” Jeppesen is the target of an ACLU lawsuit, which alleges that transported prisoners were subjected to “forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” The government has asked that the suit be rejected because it touches upon sensitive state secrets. (Boston Globe)

All of the five voting systems used in Ohio have “critical flaws” that could jeopardize the integrity of the 2008 general election. Experts involved in the study were able to pick locks and use hand-held devices to enter false voting data. The Ohio Secretary of State proposed replacing all of the state’s voting machines. (New York Times)

For eight years, the Army has known that soldiers were cheating on its largest online testing program – which verifies that soldiers have learned certain military skills and helps them amass promotion points. But the Army never acted on recommendations to improve testing security from 2001, and no one was ever prosecuted for cheating; the Army didn’t even acknowledge the problem until June of this year. (The Boston Globe)

The Bush administration’s campaign to win immunity for the communication companies who conducted warrantless surveillance for the NSA is just one part of the government’s “extensive but uneasy partnership” with industries it uses to conduct secret surveillance. The rise of fiber optics means that the NSA is now increasingly reliant on cooperation from the companies who own those lines of communication. (New York Times)

After the CIA redacted almost 20% of Valerie Plame’s manuscript, her publisher called reporter Laura Rozen. Though Plame was restricted from revealing certain details of her own life, Rozen crafted an 80-page afterward for the memoir based on interviews and archival research to fill in the gaps. (Mother Jones)

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