The commissions’ main purpose is to produce government propaganda, not justice. These are meant to be show trials, part of an overarching plan of “exploitation” of prisoners, which includes, besides a misguided attempt by some to gain intelligence data, the inducement of false confessions and the recruitment of informants via torture. The aim behind all this is political: to mobilize the U.S. population for imperialist war adventures abroad, and political repression and economic austerity at home.

Today I joined with Michael Stipe, Viggo Mortensen, Daniel Ellsberg, Roseanne Cash, Tom Morello, Jesselyn Raddick, Shepherd Fairey and others to demand that President Obama and Secretary of Defense Gates investigate the degrading treatment that Bradley Manning is being subjected to at the Quantico brig.

The High Court in Spain has decided that it can proceed with its investigation of the torture that Lahcen Ikassrien alleges he suffered at Gitmo.

SF Chronicle columnist Debra Saunders can’t stand the idea the Berkeley City Council might pass a resolution saying Berkeley welcomes the resettlement of cleared Guantanamo prisoners. So, she misrepresents recidivism rates from the government, and lies about the cases of two cleared detainees, one of whom was the only known victim of water torture at Guantanamo.

Even though 35 year-old Abdul Aziz Naji said he’d rather stay at Guantanamo than be deported to his home country of Algeria, the Obama administration forcibly deported him anyway, despite Mr. Naji’s fears that “he would be targeted by violent groups who would kill him if he refused to join their battle against the country’s government.” The U.S. Supreme Court refused to block the deportation in a ruling last week. Now Naji takes on the notoriety and the tragic fate to be the first involuntary transfer from Guantanamo.

The Supreme Court today ruled largely with the government in a case broadly interpreting the material support statute.

Judge Thomas Hogan dismissed the habeas petitions of over a hundred former Gitmo detainees because they were no longer held at Gitmo–though they may be held by US proxies elsewhere.

The Center for Constitutional Rights wrote last year:

Appendix M of the Army Field Manual… allows the use of techniques such as prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, and inducing fear and humiliation of prisoners. These techniques, especially when used in combination as permitted by the AFM, constitute cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and in some cases, torture. These techniques have caused documented, long-lasting psychological and physical harm and were condemned by a bipartisan congressional report released last month, as well as by the Bush-appointed head of the military commissions at Guantanamo.

Here is the full roundtable discussion on rolling back presidential powers. Do we expect the next resident of the White House to ditch the Patriot Act? Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, Vincent Warren, Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and David Golove, Hiller Family Foundation Professor of Law at NYU School of Law discuss.