October 13th, 2008
9/11 suspects get laptop, no Net
Al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheik Mohammed gets a laptop and 12 hours of battery time a day, but no Internet. That’s what a military judge ruled last week, according to the Miami Herald.
The issue in the 9/11 trail of Mohammed and his coconspirators is what resources they should get to defend themselves from their cells in Gitmo’s Camp Justice. They should have “reasonable access” to legal resources, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann ruled.
”Reasonable access does not equate to a right or an entitlement to be placed on the same footing as a technologically state of the art law office,” Kohlmann wrote in his three-page ruling.
The defendants had asked for a long list of Internet sites and legal databases. Ammar al Baluchi asked for a DVD writer, PowerPoint software, printers, a scanner and a hot line to the Pentagon’s defense counsel’s office.
Prosecutors volunteered to give the Toughbooks loaded with the government’s evidence and eight hours of battery a day. Kohlmann upped the battery time to 12 hours but ruled out phone link or live access to the Web.
The alleged terrorists’ US-based lawyers can download material and deliver via storage devices, providing “a broad range of news and Internet research sources applicable to the defense in this case.”
But first: government censors would review — and blackout material off-limits for ”operational or privacy concerns.”
