Al Qaeda in Supermax still hard to control

Washington Post:

Justice Department officials argue in a newly released 2006 memo that al-Qaeda captives must be confined to detention facilities with extraordinarily tight controls, citing previously unknown incidents in which detainees plotted to stage protests and create disturbances.

The memo contends that al-Qaeda prisoners at Colorado's federal "supermax" facility developed a crude communications network to coordinate a hunger strike and other group protests. The strike, which appears to have occurred earlier in 2006, was not made public.

"Even those terrorists kept in physical isolation within maximum security facilities can often find ways of communicating and thereby compromising institutional security," states the Aug. 31, 2006, document signed by Steven G. Bradbury, then-acting assistant attorney general for the department's Office of Legal Counsel.

The internal discussions about the appropriate level of security for al-Qaeda captives have particular resonance because of the ongoing debate over the Obama administration's plans to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and transfer terrorism suspects to U.S. facilities. Some lawmakers oppose the planned transfer on the grounds that it will put communities near the prisons at risk.

Human rights groups and many law enforcement officials dismiss as ludicrous the notion that maximum-security prisons cannot keep convicted terrorists securely locked up, noting that men convicted of involvement in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing have been held for more than a decade. Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project, noted that a separate document, dated May 7, 2004, and released this week, gives a different reason for keeping detainees in isolation: They would "likely divulge information about the circumstances of their detention."

"The CIA worries that if these prisoners are kept in any other kind of facility, they will talk about the torture that was inflicted on them," Jaffer said.

CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said that the agency "held captured terrorists in isolation for reasons of security and to prevent detainees from colluding on stories they could then tell their interrogators."

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The ACLU sounds more like al Qaeda's useful idiots than a reputable organization. The evidence of al Qaeda's communications in the Supermax facility is just a preview of what they would attempt elsewhere. This really shows just how screwy Obama and Holder's plans are for bringing these terrorist into this country. The should be kept at Gitmo until the war is over. It will give the ACLU an excuse to send people to a tropical island and it will keep us safer.