Were Gitmo Detainees Allowed to Use Laptops?

By: Sean Alfano
Topics: In The News

U.S. security officials have expressed concern over reports that five al Qaeda members detained at Guantanamo Bay were allowed to use laptops and may have been able to pass sensitive information to other alleged terrorists, reports the Washington Times Friday.

Senior Pentagon officials approved the use of the laptops in September 2008, which did not have Internet access, to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, seen at left, and four other men alleged to be 9/11 conspirators, the Washington Times reports.

The practice allowing the detainees use of the laptops lasted until this January, when Attorney General Eric Holder decided to try the men in civilian court.

According to the Washington Times:

The computer access was granted by Guantanamo authorities before an Oct. 6, 2008, ruling by Marine Corps Col. Ralph H. Kohlmann, a military judge, that formally granted the five terrorism suspect the right to use computers, said Col. Les Melnyk, a Pentagon spokesman.

Col. Melnyk said that prior to the ruling "the government's prosecution team agreed to provide a number of the materials requested by the defense - including computers - in advance of the ruling, having already determined that this was the fairest, safest and most secure way for 'pro se accused' to mount an appropriate defense." The term "pro se" describes defendants who represent themselves in legal proceedings without lawyers.

"It is a slippery slope," Tom Joscelyn, of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Times. "It is basically moving the ball inch by inch. This is one more thing that we are giving to them, and there is really no good reason that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed deserves a laptop."

Click here to read the full Washington Times article.

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by FauxNews March 19, 2010 12:44 PM EDT

They get free food, laundry, housing, library access, cable TV, and medical care that most Americans can't afford. Their living conditions in our jails are better than hotels in their country. So, why is anyone worried about free laptops?

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by arcticredrvr March 19, 2010 9:42 PM EDT: The captives are supplied with food. I doubt even a homeless American would envy them their open-air cages in Hurricane country. Don't be fooled by the claims the captives get excellent medical care. The public record shows some captives received abysmal medical care. The captives do not get cable TV. The limited number of compliant captives are allowed to watch a limited number of pre-recorded and screened TV shows. "The deadliest catch" is the favorite of the limited number of captives who are rewarded with a limited number of recorded shows. There is a "library" for the captives -- a limited one. One captive described the bookmobile wheeled up to his cell as a cart with the same couple of dozen tattered, ancient National Geographics, and similar cast-offs. He described eventually requesting the GI who served as the librarian to stop visiting his cell, since the selection never changed.
So please don't describe this as a luxury.


by FauxNews March 23, 2010 3:15 PM EDT: Arcticredrvr, sounds like you have good communications with your friends at Gitmo. I didn't know they had free mail service too. And, don't bother to tell me it's "limited free mail service", lol.

by Skruffy1 March 19, 2010 9:44 AM EDT

I think they should be able to use computers. Like the old Timex Sinclair or TI-99's. And if they behave themselves, maybe they could upgrade to an Atari 400.

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by arcticredrvr March 19, 2010 9:29 PM EDT: Let's be serious here. Public safety is best served by a fair trial. The Bush administration's use of actual torture made the public much less safe, because, among other reasons, it polluted the intelligence pool. Mark Thiessen has been claiming that the torture of Abu Zubaydah and Mohammed Al Qahtani was much more effective than the traditional humane, rapport-building interrogations that preceded the torture, because of the quantity of the confessions torture triggered. In doing so he ignores the well-known phenomenon that captives will confess to anything and everything, when being tortured.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is a case in point. Once he started being tortured he confessed to so many plots it was actually embarrassing. He has been called the Forrest Gump of Terrorism, because he confessed to playing a role in every single plot. He confessed to plots no-one had ever heard of before, and which might very well have been made up simply to get his torturers to stop torturing him.

Public safety is best served by having them participate as fully as possible in their defense. In a fair trial evidence is actually tested. The defense gets to cross examine the prosecution's case, and the prosecution will get a chance to cross examin the defense's witnesses, if any.

Fair trials will present the best chance for the wild-goose chases the Bush administration pursusued to be exposed ans shelved -- a big boost for public safety...

In order for the captive to participate in their defense they need to be able to read the documents that will be used during their trials. Many of these documents only exist in digital form -- making a computer essential -- not a luxury.

Were the computers supplied with the usual solitaire game? Possibly. There is a pertty good chance the computers they were supplied shipped without any games. But what if they were? Surely this can not be described as a real threat to public safety?