 | Paging ex-JAG, paging ex-JAG to the yellow comment box ... |
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) - A Navy lawyer accused of passing secret information about Guantanamo Bay detainees sent a human rights lawyer their names and intelligence about them tucked into a Valentine's Day card, prosecutors said Monday.
Lt. Cmdr. Matthew M. Diaz's actions endangered the lives of the detainees and American troops on the front line in the war on terror, prosecutor Lt. James Hoffman said during opening statements in Diaz's court-martial at Norfolk Naval Station. ``This case deals with the deliberate, intentional, conscious release of classified information,'' Hoffman told the jury of seven Navy officers.
But defense attorney Lt. Justin Henderson said that the information was not marked classified and that Diaz had no reason to think the document ``could be used to injure the United States.'' ``We don't expect the evidence will show that Diaz made the right decision. We don't expect the evidence will show he made a wise decision,'' Henderson said. ``He made a decision that was less than forthright, but he did not make an unlawful decision.''
| Seems pretty simple to me: if the information was classified, Diaz's opinion -- or Henderson's -- as to whether it would 'injure the United States' is immaterial. Classified means just that. |
Diaz was near the end of a six-month stint at the U.S. military base in Cuba when he went to his office the night of Jan. 2, 2005, and used his classified computer to log into a classified military network and accessed a Web database with information about the detainees, Hoffman said. Diaz printed information including the names of 550 detainees, their nationalities, the interrogators assigned to them and ``intelligence sources and methods,'' Hoffman said.
| Seems pretty classified to me. |
Diaz then ``cut that document into 39 sheets so that the nation's secrets fit inside this card,'' Hoffman said as he held up to the jury a copy of the card, with a big heart and a Chihuahua on the front. He said Diaz mailed the card in an unmarked envelope on Jan. 15, 2005, his last day of duty at the base.
| And it seems like he knew it. |
Human rights attorney Barbara Olshansky testified that the document in ``this weird valentine'' she received was not marked classified. At the time, Olshansky worked for the Center for Constitutional Rights.
| AH-HA! BINGO! The CCR is a quasi-commie, Soros-funded, hard-left organization that has its hands in all sorts of nefarious issues. They've been raising a stink about Gitmo since day one. That's all the proof I need to know that Babbles was on the receiving end of classified information. When does she go on trial? |
She said the nonprofit legal group was suing the federal government to obtain the names of detainees because the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that the detainees had the right to challenge their detention.
| And this is how she got the information, since she couldn't get it legally. When does she go on trial? |
Olshansky said that she asked the judge in the lawsuit to hold on to the document, but that the judge referred the matter to a Justice Department security officer.
| Since the judge knew it was classified information and knew Babbles had gotten it illegally. When does she go on trial? |
Olshansky also testified that she never had met or spoken with Diaz and that the center was able to obtain some detainees' names from lists compiled by other organizations, such as Amnesty International.
| Baloney, of course. The military investigators need to toss this chick's life and office. Then she needs to go on trial. |
Diaz, 41, of Topeka, Kan., worked as a staff judge advocate at Guantanamo Bay, where he provided counsel to the military command in charge of the detention center but was not involved in detainees' cases, the Navy said.
| So his logging into a classified computer to get detainee names was immediately suspect, since he had no reason to be around those names. Bet they got a log of his access, which files, etc. He's just plain toast at this point. Wonder if he'll roll over on Babbles? |
Diaz is charged with failing to obey a lawful general regulation, engaging in conduct unbecoming an officer by wrongfully transmitting classified documents to an unauthorized person, and turning over to an unauthorized person secret information related to national defense. He originally faced 36 years in prison if convicted, but some charges have been consolidated and the maximum punishment now is 24 years, Navy spokesman Kevin Copeland said. Diaz remains free and is stationed in Jacksonville, Fla. |