It seems the more secrets the Bush Administration tries to keep, the more it comes back to bite them in their collective butts. Here are a couple examples of the president’s secret fantasy justice in the name of the ‘global war on terror’ that are blowing the lid off the illicit ways this presidential adminstration has operated as no other.
The New York Times is reporting that a federal judge recently warned that if the government did not allow lawyers to review classified materials on possible wiretapping of one ‘terrorist’, she might order a new trial for him and MSNBC News is reporting that 5 news organizations are complaining they’ve been denied access to a Guantanamo case where a trial was held in secret closed sessions via e-mail.
One of the latest legal problems involves the legality of the National Security Agency (NSA) wiretapping program. Ali Al-Timimi, an islamic scholar in Northern Virginia was sentenced to life in prison in 2005 for inciting followers to commit acts of terrorism. Al-Timimi claims he was illegally wiretapped by the NSA as part of its eavesdropping without warrants that was approved by President Bush after 9/11 (although it’s now public knowledge that the illegal wiretapping started long before then).
Four months after the NSA program was disclosed, an appellate court directed the trial judge in Mr. Timimi’s case to reconsider it in light of his lawyers’ accusations.