Letters to the Editor
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Secret 757 (CIA Global Prison System)
Just out of curiosity, I took the liberty of checking the Federal Aviation Administration's on-line records for the registration number of the Boeing 757, "N313P" as described in the story about secret CIA prisons and came up with a common kit-built, single-engine airplane called a RV-7A, registered to a person in Twin Falls, Idaho. This is nothing like a 757.
Either the author got the number wrong, or the number on the 757 is false; it seems to me, however, that if the CIA (or some other secret agency) is operating this 757, and they are using a false registration number, it would at least be one that is not currently assigned to any other aircraft, making it not so obvious that it's false. Perhaps the number was incorrectly observed? Here's the URL to the FAA page for N313P:
http://162.58.35.241/acdatabase/NNumSQL.asp?NNumbertxt=313P&cmndfind.x=15&cmndfind.y=12
Maybe a follow-up inquiry to the owner of the RV-7A is in order if that number is indeed the one on the tail of the 757.
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CIA's fleet
While Dean Cully correctly notes that tail number N313P is currently assigned to a kit-built RV-7A, keen observers will note that this assignment dates to July 20, 2005. The Guardian article alleges that in September 2003, a Boeing 757 bearing this number flew between Afghanistan. Poland, Romania, and Guantanamo, more than a year before this certificate was issued.
Previous news reports of N313P's activities, such as Newsweeks "Aboard Air CIA" (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6999272/site/newsweek/) have reported that it was a Boeing 737, not a 757 as the Guardian alleges. This discrepancy, though minor, does the cause of human rights no favors. Perhaps Salon's aviation columnist, Patrick Smith, could briefly touch upon tail numbers, "Air CIA", and, of course, the difference between a 737 and a 757.
Jeremy Erwin
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Journalism is not a crime
You and I know about these prisons because of the work of journalists who are now under attack by the U.S. government, which is using a provision of the Patriot Act to go after media workers. That the Bush Administration is interested in keeping the American public (indeed the world public) ignorant, and thereofre disempowered could not be made more clear than by its attempt to target the newspeople who have contributed an invaluable service by informing us of this human rights outrage. We all ought to say a prayer tonight for all of our "prisoners without names" sitting in their "cells without numbers," and to the extent that we do nothing to oppose the outrageous practice of secret imprisonment, we share responsibility for every "off the books" detainee who simply disappears. First they came for the nameless ...