Fred Mazelis

Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a 41-year-old Yemeni prisoner

One of the five Guantánamo detainees facing a possible death sentence was repeatedly ejected from the courtroom during the military commission hearing at the US base when he shouted that he had been tortured by the authorities.

Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a 41-year-old Yemeni prisoner, has been held for years by the US military, and was transferred to Guantánamo, along with other “high value” detainees, in 2006.

When asked by Col. James L. Pohl, the presiding judge, whether he understood his rights at the proceeding, bin al-Shibh said,

“I totally refuse to answer this question as long as the judge is taking positions against me and my allegations.”

According to the report in the New York Times, he shouted words to the effect that, “I am not a war criminal; you are a war criminal,” as he was removed from the courtroom.

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Stephen Lendman

Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states:

"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights states:

"Everyone has the right to respect for his privacy and family life, his home and his correspondence."

Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence...Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

Various other international accords affirm privacy rights. So does the US Constitution. The Fourth Amendment protects against lawless searches and seizure.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Washington claims to be “exceptional” and “indispensable”
and, therefore, above law and morality. ~ Paul Craig Roberts

Years ago when I described the George W. Bush regime as a police state, right-wing eyebrows were raised. When I described the Obama regime as an even worse police state, liberals rolled their eyes. Alas! Now I am no longer controversial. Everybody says it.

According to the UK newspaper, The Guardian, the Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, had an angry exchange with Obama in which Merkel compared Obama’s National Security Agency (NSA) with the East German Communist Stasi, which spied on everyone through networks of informers.

Merkel grew up in Communist East Germany where she was spied upon by the Stasi, and now that she has risen to the highest political office in Europe’s most powerful state, she is spied upon by “freedom and democracy” America.

A former top NSA official, William Binney, declared that “We (the US) are now in a police state.” The mass spying conducted by the Obama regime, Binney says “is a totalitarian process.”

Perhaps my best vindication, after all the hate mail from “super patriots,” who wear their ignorance on their sleeves, and Obama-worshipping liberals, whose gullibility is sickening, came from federal judge Richard Leon, who declared the Obama-sanctioned NSA spying to be “almost Orwellian.” As the American Civil Liberties Union realized, federal judge Leon’s decision vindicated Edward Snowden by ruling that the NSA spying is likely outside what the Constitution permits, “labeling it ‘Orwellian’–adding that James Madison would be ‘aghast.’”

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