Letters to the Editor

The Leader isn't protecting us and keeping us safe George Bush warns of the grave dangers from allowing the Protect America Act to expire, even though he is the one who single-handedly ensured its expiration. Glenn Greenwald [2008-02-16]

• Morris Davis

  06/26/2007:

  http://nytimes.com/2007/06/26/opinion/26davis.html

  Op-Ed Contributor
  The Guantánamo I Know
  By MORRIS D. DAVIS
  Published: June 26, 2007

  Guantánamo Bay is a clean, safe and humane place for enemy combatants, and the Military Commissions Act provides a fair process to adjudicate the guilt or innocence of those alleged to have committed crimes. Even the most vocal critics say they do not want to set terrorists free, but they scorn Guantánamo Bay and military commissions and demand alternatives. The facts show the current alternative is worth keeping.

  - - Morris D. Davis, a colonel in the Air Force, is the chief prosecutor in the Defense Department’s Office of Military Commissions.

  - -

  02/17/2008:

  http://nytimes.com/2008/02/17/opinion/17davis.html

  Op-Ed Contributor
  Unforgivable Behavior, Inadmissible Evidence
  By MORRIS DAVIS
  Published: February 17, 2008

  My policy as the chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantánamo was that evidence derived through waterboarding was off limits. That should still be our policy. To do otherwise is not only an affront to American justice, it will potentially put prosecutors at risk for using illegally obtained evidence.

  Unfortunately, I was overruled on the question, and I resigned my position to call attention to the issue — efforts that were hampered by my being placed under a gag rule and ordered not to testify at a Senate hearing. While some high-level military and civilian officials have rightly expressed indignation on the issue, the current state can be described generally as indifference and inaction.

  At a Senate hearing in December, the legal adviser for the military commissions, Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, refused to rule out using evidence obtained by waterboarding.

  - - Morris Davis, an Air Force colonel, was the chief prosecutor for the military commissions at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, from 2005 to 2007.

  -- sysprog
  [Read sysprog's other letters]
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