Detainees' Lawyers Can't Click on Leaked Documents
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WASHINGTON -- Anyone surfing the Internet this week is free to read leaked documents about the prisoners held by the American military at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to print them out or e-mail them to friends.
Except, that is, for the lawyers who represent the prisoners.
On Monday, hours after WikiLeaks, The New York Times and other news organizations began publishing the documents online, the Justice Department informed Guantánamo defense lawyers that the documents remained legally classified even after they were made public.
Because the lawyers have security clearances, they are obligated to treat the readily available files "in accordance with all relevant security precautions and safeguards" -- handling them, for example, only in secure government facilities, said the notice from the department's Court Security Office.
It is only the latest absurdist challenge posed by the flood of classified material obtained by WikiLeaks over the past year: field reports from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; State Department cables; and now the military's risk assessments of 700 past or present Guantánamo prisoners.
Joseph Margulies, a Northwestern law professor who represents Abu Zubaydah, the detainee accused of being a terrorist facilitator who was waterboarded by the Central Intelligence Agency, said he could not comment on the newly disclosed assessment of his client, which is posted on The Times Web site.
"Everyone else can talk about it," Mr. Margulies said. "I can't talk about it."
The ballooning category of public-but-classified documents has befuddled officials and led to a series of unusual pronouncements from government agencies and those who work with them.
In December, Columbia University warned international relations students that commenting on the documents disclosed by WikiLeaks online or linking to them might endanger their chances of getting a government job. The same month, the United States Agency for International Development told workers that viewing the documents on an unclassified computer at work or home could violate security rules that govern their employment. In February, an Air Force unit cautioned that employees and even their family members could be prosecuted under the Espionage Act for looking at the WikiLeaks documents at home.
First Published April 27, 2011 12:01 am
