What is it that they don't want us to find out?

Houston Chronicle: "U.S. Fights Detainee Access to Attorney"

(also Forbes,
www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/politics/4310060.html)

I have to say that this one gives me a very sick feeling.

They haven't charged this guy with a crime... now they're saying he
can't even talk to an attorney, because he might tell the attorney the
techniques to questioned him.

It's not merely that I am rather queasy at the fact that they are
trying to keep us from finding out what they did (although I am). What
I find even worse is the fact that, before any kind of trial, they are
saying that they intend to never let him free, since they claim that
they can't allow him to talk to anybody ever.

What are they trying to hide? What is it that they are afraid we might
find out about about how he was questioned for the last three years?
How did it happen that United States government has secret prisons and
a secret police, and the USA turned into a country that says people
don't have a right to an attorney, or a trial, or even a right to be
charged with a crime before being imprisoned?

Is this what we wanted, when we call America the land of the free?

WASHINGTON Nov 4, 2006 (AP)- A suspected terrorist who spent years in
a secret CIA prison should not be allowed to speak to a civilian
attorney, the Bush administration argues, because he could reveal the
agency's closely guarded interrogation techniques.

Human rights groups have questioned the CIA's methods for questioning
suspects, especially following the passage of a bill last month that
authorized the use of harsh but undefined interrogation tactics.

In recently filed court documents, the Justice Department said those
methods, along with the locations of the CIA's network of prisons, are
among the nation's most sensitive secrets. Prisoners who spent time in
those prisons should not be allowed to disclose that information, even
to a lawyer, the government said.

"Improper disclosure of other operational details, such as
interrogation methods, could also enable terrorist organizations and
operatives to adapt their training to counter such methods, thereby
obstructing the CIA's ability to obtain vital intelligence that could
disrupt future planned terrorist attacks," the Justice Department
wrote.

The documents, which were first reported by The Washington Post, were
filed in opposition to a request that terror suspect Majid Khan should
be given access to an attorney. Khan, 26, immigrated from Pakistan and
graduated high school in Maryland.

According to documents filed on his behalf by the Center for
Constitutional Rights, Khan was arrested in Pakistan in 2003. During
more than three years in CIA custody, Khan was subjected to
interrogation techniques that defense attorneys suggest amounted to
torture.

President Bush acknowledged the existence of the CIA system in
September and transferred Khan and 13 other prisoners designated as
"terrorist leaders" to the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Under a law passed last month, they are to be tried before special
military commissions and may not have access to civilian courts.

(also reported at ABC News,
abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2628673&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
and Voice of America:
www.voanews.com/english/2006-11-04-voa15.cfm)