Geneva Violations To Prevent Article III Judicial Oversight

Prisoners have been detained in violation of Geneva not because of error or confusion, but deliberately to avoid judicial oversight. This is circular, and no defense, nor a legal foundation to support the unlawful Senate-Presidential agreement.

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The government fails to explain why the detainees could not have been detained in Guantanamo from the outset.

The apparent reason fro the CIA detention centers has nothing to do with intelligence gathering, but a desire to find a geographic location where US and international law would not be applied. The current Senate-Executive agreements would be interpreted through that lens.

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The purpose of the detentions in Eastern Europe was not to have a better way to collect information. This contention is dubious.

Rather, the government in using the CIA detention centers had another objective: To thwart the courts from engaging in judicial oversight.

The Courts opinion illustrates the difficulty of prosecuting prisoners who have been denied due process; while still lawfully complying with evidence requirements.

It remains to be proven that the defendants were detained because of an extraordinary security risk, why they could not have been lawfully detained per Geneva at Guantanamo, or why the CIA officials hoped for immunity.

Adverse Judgments

We judge the following:

1. American citizens are regularly abused in American prisoners, under conditions that would be prosecuted as war crimes and Geneva violations. The convictions and detentions, in part, can be linked with information prosecutors know or should know is linked with illegal data mining in violation of FISA. Ref

2. The objective of the CIA detentions in Eastern Europe, as opposed to Guantanamo, was only related to geographical concerns, not with bonafide intelligence gathering.

3. The United States did not move the prisoners to the CIA detention centers because of higher or better intelligence gathering; this could have easily have been achieved in Guantanamo.

4. The Geneva violations are widespread in Eastern Europe.

5. The goal in choosing the Eastern European detention center had nothing to do with security, but with a prospective view that Guantanamo, if it were subject to US judicial review, would require a secondary facility. The Eastern European detention centers, like the floating prisoners ships, were illegally argued to be beyond judicial review by any court.

6. The objective of the operations, secrecy, and prisoner treatment has not been to primary gather intelligence. The goal has been to abuse, punish, and engage in non-judicial punishment of prisoners the United States did not have admissible evidence to prosecute. Rather than free the prisoners, or detain them in accordance with Geneva, the United States freely chose to engage in Geneva violations.

7. The same legal defenses in this opinion, which may bar prosecution of US government officials in re the Plame-name-leak, are likely to be applied in the war crimes tribunals.

8. The objective of the secrecy standards in the military commissions was not to protect evidence, but to deny the defendant the opportunity to eject inadmissible evidence or other information that was unreliable, but the government has used as the basis for the illegal pre-trial abuse, detention, and Geneva violations.

9. The same legal advisors who developed the European Detention center procedures are allegedly instrumental in providing legal advise in this matter. Those who crafted the rules related to the Eastern European detention centers allegedly knew the possible defendant legal defenses, and crated a detention system in Eastern Europe premised on these anticipated legal defenses.

10. The legal defenses that were well discussed, and the basis for creating the Eastern European detention center rules, which otherwise allegedly violate Geneva, were done with forethought, knowledge of the law, and a desire to undermine the Article III powers of the Court that are otherwise being exerted in this opinion.

11. It remains to be proven at trial that the DOJ Staff, based on their likely concern in 2001 with legal defenses in this opinion, used this expected legal defense as the basis to create a system of detentions that violated Geneva with the express intent of thwarting prisoner defenses at a judicial review.

12. The White House had a greater fear that the prisoners would be found innocent and not convicted. Rather than risk public trial, they illegally detained the prisoners in violation of Geneva.

13. The basis for the post 9-11-NSA surveillance has been dubious, not linked with credible intelligence. Had there been bonafide intelligence, we would have seen more prosecutions in jurisdictions far away from Virginia. The standard of evidence has been illegally lowered, relies on emotion, and not probative evidence. There is a reasonable basis for the public to question the government intentions, and the legitimacy of the post-2001 terror-related convictions.

14. The proper Article III judicial review will likely conclude: There was no evidence to detain prisoners; there are other prisoner detention centers outside Eastern Europe; the procedures at the detention centers were known to be in violation of Geneva; the Senate-President agreement was designed to immunize illegal conduct which had occurred at the Eastern European detention centers; the case files of the prisoners does not warrant conviction; the proper judicial remedy, as the DOJ Staff knew, was for the prisoners to be released.

15. There is no lawful basis to say in Sept 2006 that the post Sept 2001-related combat operations are logically linked with the events of Sept 2001. All use of force in Afghanistan and Iraq is substantially unrelated to the original military objectives. Although troops are located in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Congress has failed to ensure that the military mission and combat forces in place are lawfully connected with the original authorization to use force.

16. There are specific memoranda within DoJ, DoD, and CIA which well discusses the legal defenses. Because of their alleged link with war crimes, and fraud, they are admissible, and the President may not lawfully invoke privilege to prevent the war crimes prosecutor from reviewing this memoranda.

17. The DOJ Staff acted with reckless disregard for Geneva. The primary objective was not to gather intelligence, but to avoid Article III judicial oversight. The memoranda show the DoJ Staff well knew Geneva, the President was briefed, but the common course of conduct was to recklessly disregard known Geneva requirements.

18. No Congressional-Executive agreement in Sept 2006 can immunize anyone for illegal acts between 1997-2006.

19. The intermediate objective of the CIA detentions centers in Eastern Europe was to suppress evidence of American citizens being illegally detained at other locations around the globe. It was thought that public outrage at American detentions would backfire, and trigger public denunciations of the entire detention system.

20. The larger objective was to justify continued defense spending on weapon systems that otherwise had no credible enemy to justify appropriations. If it was known that there was no evidence to justify prosecutions, and no visible progress on the battlefield, the questions becomes: Who are we fighting, what is the strategy, and how many Americans have to be illegally rendered before the White House is called to account before a war crimes tribunal: Committing grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions against American citizens using illegally captured data from the illegal NSA surveillance activity. The problem is this line of inquiry correctly realigns the judicial system and lawfully targets the NSA, DoD, and DoJ contractors for their alleged complicity in supporting illegal war crimes, and their illegal violations of the State privacy statutes and Constitutions.

21. The states could prosecute the President for violating state criminal statutes. The ongoing discovery against Verizon and AT&T could reveal evidence of this war crimes planning. This evidence would prove important to war crimes prosecutors when investigating alleged American government war crimes committed against American civilians.