The location of approximately forty prisoners held at CIA secret prisons is still unknown to the public, ProPublica reported Wednesday. The memos released last week showing that the Bush administration approved harsh interrogation techniques, confirmed that one prisoner, Hassan Ghul, was interrogated in a secret prison, but the CIA denies ever holding Ghul and his location remains a secret. The same is true for many war on terror prisoners. President Bush publicly acknowledged the CIA secret programs in 2006 and moved 14 prisoners “with little or no additional intelligence value” from secret prisons to Guantanamo Bay. (Pro Publica)
A federal judge will allow an Afghan citizen held at Guantanamo Bay to challenge his detention in U.S. court, the ACLU said Wednesday. Mohammed Jawad, who was 16 or 17 when arrested, is charged with killing two U.S. soldiers and an interpreter in a 2002 grenade attack. A lawyer for the ACLU said that the judge’s ruling supported the long-standing right to challenge indefinite imprisonment in U.S. courts under habeas corpus. The lawyer called for a prompt trial because Jawad’s “mental and physical well-being continue to be jeopardized by the harsh conditions in which he is being held at Guantanamo.” (Reuters)
A resident of Anchorage, Alaska filed a complaint against Gov. Sarah Palin for her role in the political action committee SarahPAC. The Sondra Tompkins complaint highlights frustrations within the state legislature that Palin has put her personal ambition ahead of the state of Alaska. Joining the debate, Tompkins says that Palin shirked her duties as governor towards the end of the legislative session by visiting Indiana for two political events, including one with anti-abortion activists. “The recent partisan trip to Indiana by the Governor was purely to benefit personal interests, had no benefit for the State of Alaska and was in direct conflict with her official duties,” the complaint said. (Anchorage Daily News)
Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said Wednesday that he would ask the Federal Aviation Administration to release information on when and where airplanes strike flocks of birds. The push for FAA transparency is partially the result of a U.S. Airways flight that landed in the Hudson earlier this year after hitting a flock of birds. The FAA has repeatedly tried to stop the release of information on the subject, after shutting down a 2004 NASA study reportedly because it would harm the FAA’s image and profits. LaHood said that keeping the information secret “doesn’t really comport with the president’s idea of transparency.” (Washington Post)
The ACLU and a group of Hispanic organizations is challenging a California police department for allegedly using racial profiling to identify and deport illegal immigrants. A top official for the ACLU in San Diego said that the Escondido Police Department’s checkpoints function as “fishing expeditions for illegal immigrants” and called for the resignation of Police Chief Jim Maher. The town conducts checkpoints on a busy street north of San Diego twice per month for two hours to catch drivers without licenses. The ACLU requested that the police department begin to record interactions between drivers and police officers, but Maher declined, saying that the information would be easily manipulated. (San Diego Union-Tribune)
