Only in Bizarro World is this called justice
by digby
Does this sound like anything you’ve ever been told could be called “justice”?
Two weeks ago, a pair of F.B.I. agents appeared unannounced at the door of a member of the defense team for one of the men accused of plotting the 9/11 terrorist attacks. As a contractor working with the defense team at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the man was bound by the same confidentiality rules as a lawyer. But the agents wanted to talk.
They asked questions, lawyers say, about the legal teams for Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other accused terrorists who will eventually stand trial before a military tribunal at Guantánamo. Before they left, the agents asked the contractor to sign an agreement promising not to tell anyone about the conversation.
With that signature, Mr. bin al-Shibh’s lawyers say, the government turned a member of their team into an F.B.I. informant.
Also too, is this ok?
Last year, as a lawyer for Mr. Mohammed was speaking during another hearing, a red light began flashing. Then the videofeed from the courtroom abruptly cut out. The emergency censorship system had been activated. But why? And by whom? The defense lawyer had said nothing classified. And the court officer responsible for protecting state secrets had not triggered the system. Days later, the military judge, Col. James L. Pohl, announced that he had been told that an “original classification authority” — meaning the C.I.A. — was secretly monitoring the proceedings. Unknown to everyone else, the agency had its own button, which the judge swiftly and angrily disconnected.
Last year, the government acknowledged that microphones were hidden inside what looked like smoke detectors in the rooms where detainees met with their lawyers. Those microphones gave officials the ability to eavesdrop on confidential conversations, but the military said it never did so.
A kangaroo court is a judicial tribunal or assembly that blatantly disregards recognized standards of law or justice, and often carries little or no official standing in the territory within which it resides. Merriam-Webster defines it as “a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted”.
A kangaroo court is often held by a group or a community to give the appearance of a fair and just trial, even though the verdict has in reality already been decided before the trial has begun. Such courts typically take place in rural areas where legitimate law enforcement may be limited. The term may also apply to a court held by a legitimate judicial authority who intentionally disregards the court’s legal or ethical obligations.
This is why I laugh when people say we need to “trust” the secret intelligence agencies and accept that they are following the rule of law and the constitution. It’s probably the most fatuous remark I ever hear from liberals. According to that way of thinking, it’s the people who reveal the government’s misdeeds, not the misdeeds themselves, that constitutes betrayal of our country. I think that may be just a tiny misunderstanding of the issue.
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