Disinformation Book of Lists (16 page)

“Moreover, precedents set in this terrorism conflict may end up being applied as well to international narcotics or money-laundering offenses.”

8

legal historians

Who
: A group of two-dozen legal historians from Harvard, Boston College, Columbia, Oxford, Stanford, Yale, Amherst, Princeton, Georgetown, and other universities.

Excerpt
: “In sum, the historical evidence is not consistent with the government's claim that the writ of
habeas corpus
guaranteed by the Constitution is unavailable to test even the classification as ‘alien enemies' of those detained at Guantánamo. Guantánamo lies a mere 90 miles from the United States and has been subject to the exclusive control and jurisdiction of the United States for the past century. No other law but US law operates there. The historical evidence suggests instead that the denial of all
habeas corpus
review in such a situation would contravene the fundamental principles that have governed the availability and operation of the Great Writ since well before the United States Constitution was adopted.”

9

bipartisan coalition of national and international non-governmental organizations

Who
: Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, American Civil Liberties Union, Anti-Defamation League, Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Association of the Bar of the City of New York, National Association of Social Workers (Legal Defense Fund), People For the American Way Foundation, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, and seven other legal and religious groups.

Excerpts
: “Were the Due Process Clause inapplicable to US actions in Guantanamo Bay, then the Constitution would allow the summary execution or torture of prisoners detained there. Indeed, the government has conceded this in open court. See
Gherebi v. Bush
, 2003. (‘[A]t oral argument, the government advised us that its position would be the same even if the claims were that it was engaging in acts of torture or that it was summarily executing the detainees. To our knowledge, prior to the current detention of prisoners at Guantanamo, the US government has never before asserted such a grave and startling proposition.')”

“The US Department of Defense has asserted that the Guantanamo prisoners, nearly all of whose identities have not been officially disclosed, are ‘battlefield' detainees who were engaged in combat when arrested. But in addition to Petitioners' claims of non-combatancy, it is clear that some detainees were apprehended far from battlefields. For instance, Guantanamo holds six Bosnians and Algerians who were arrested by Bosnian police in Bosnia and then handed over to US troops at the request of the United States. They were quickly transported to Guantanamo, despite a Bosnian court order that four of the men remain in Bosnia for further proceedings.”

10

International Commission of Jurists

Who
: “The ICJ is comprised of 60 jurists [judges, prosecutors, and attorneys] of high standing in their own country or at the international level.”

Excerpts
: “If the Court's interpretation of
Johnson v. Eisentrager
were correct, US officials could arrest foreign nationals and, by the simple device of transferring such prisoners to a place of detention outside the sovereign territory of the United States, defeat the jurisdiction of the United States Courts to review the legality of their detention. The US Executive could arbitrarily hold such individuals in detention with no accountability to any court of law.”

“There are already disturbing signs that other nations have begun to use the example of the United States to justify arbitrary detention of their citizens. For example, Malaysia's Law Minister has justified the detention of militants without trial stating that its practice was ‘just like the process at Guantanamo Bay.' The minister further indicated that he ‘put the equation with Guantanamo Bay just to make it graphic to you that this is not simply a Malaysian style of doing things.'”

11

Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association

Who
: “The Human Rights Institute of the International Bar Association (the ‘Institute') is an international body headquartered in London, England, that helps promote, protect and enforce human rights under a just rule of law, and works to preserve the independence of the judiciary and legal profession worldwide. Founded in 1995 under the Honorary Presidency of Nelson Mandela, the Institute now has more than 7,000 members worldwide.”

Excerpt
: “Even where the presumption of prisoner of war status is displaced, the [Geneva] Conventions afford due process protection to all detainees, ensuring that they are not held without justification and that any prosecution brought against them accords with fundamental justice. Combatants who are not members of any armed forces or volunteer corps belonging to a party to a conflict have been described as ‘unlawful combatants,' although no such status is recognized in the Geneva Conventions. If they are not members of the armed forces, they fall within the scope of the Civilian Convention. Accordingly, while unlawful combatants (unlike prisoners of war) may be prosecuted for taking part in the conflict and for any crimes committed in that regard, they are entitled to the judicial guarantees set out within the Civilian Convention should they be prosecuted for their actions.”

12

National Institute of Military Justice

Who
: “[A] District of Columbia nonprofit corporation organized in 1991 to advance the fair administration of military justice and to foster improved public understanding of the military justice system.”

Excerpts
: “A well-developed body of law regarding individuals seized during hostilities has been enforced regularly by impartial tribunals in past conflicts, and is being applied today by United States armed forces in combat. The application of the rule of law to individuals seized during hostilities is not inconsistent with the Executive Branch's exercise of its war powers, either in theory or in the practice of the United States over the past fifty years. Nor is there anything novel about issuing a writ of
habeas corpus
on the application of an individual confined by the military at Guantanamo Bay, something the highest court of the military did in
Burtt v. Schick
, 23 M.J. 140 (1986).”

“Domestic law and practice thus make it clear that Guantanamo Bay has never been regarded by the United States as a ‘law-free' zone. United States courts exercise criminal jurisdiction over both citizens and aliens at Guantanamo Bay. In connection with the detainees currently interned at Guantanamo Bay, the United States has already asserted jurisdiction over an Army chaplain, two translators, and an intelligence officer. Judicial resolution of charges against those individuals has not troubled the Government, which is according rights to everyone except the detainees themselves.

“While the Government devotes much attention to the supposed unavailability of
habeas corpus
in Guantanamo Bay, no such jurisdictional difficulty was found by the court with responsibility for the military justice system. In
Burtt v. Schick
, a Navy enlisted man confined at Guantanamo Bay sought a writ of
habeas corpus
after the prosecution had obtained a mistrial over his objection. Holding that the mistrial had been obtained without either ‘manifest necessity,' or the consent of the accused, the Court of Military Appeals unanimously granted the writ against the officer-in-charge of the Guantanamo Bay brig. In doing so, it found no obstacle to asserting
habeas corpus
jurisdiction over individuals at Guantanamo Bay.”

1

Around-the-corner gun

Guns with barrels that curve 90 degrees have been around since the late 1800s, according to the
How to Kill
series of books. The Kummlauf used by the Nazis is well-known, and the concept made headlines in 2003 when the Israeli Defense Force started using a modern version—the Corner Shot machine gun—for shooting Palestinians.

2

Bio-inoculator

A dartgun that looks like a pistol, used with shellfish poison and cobra venom. This puppy became public knowledge when, during the Church Committee's investigation into CIA crimes, Director William Casey displayed it before the startled Senators.

3

Bottle blowgun

Say you want to send a poison dart into your target's neck, but putting a blowgun to your mouth might tend to attract attention, especially in an urban environment. Well, just get an empty soda can and paint it the color of the beverage it once contained. Run a sawed-off blowgun from the lip to a hole cut in the button. While it looks like you're enjoying liquid refreshment, your actually dealing out horrible death!

4

Brow-beater

This specially-designed gun is built into a soldier's hard-helmet, with the trigger connected to the chin strap. When the soldier opens his mouth, the device fires out of the front of the helmet.

5

Duck's foot pistol

An uncommon design from the olden days, duck's foot pistols were flintlock derringers with two or more barrels that would simultaneous discharge with one pull of the trigger. Usually, the barrels pointed in different directions, so the ammo would fan out over a large area, making this gun good for handling grumbling crowds. One model was made with
eight
barrels, covering a 120-degree range!

6

Glass knife

Most obviously used for getting past metal detectors, these daggers are sharp but almost invisible.

7

Knuckle pistol

Around five inches long, this homemade number protrudes between your index and middle fingers when you make a fist. Punch someone in the skull or chest to activate the firing pin, which sends a single slug into the victim.

8

Lapel dagger

This flat blade—in the shape of either a long right triangle or a thin pyramid, is the perfect shape to slide into the lapel of a suit coat.

9

Liberator 9MM pistol

Probably the world's smallest gun, this steel and aluminum nine-milli from Stinger Manufacturing is the length and height of a credit card. And, with a width of nine-tenths of an inch, it's not very thick either.

10

Metal Storm

Australian inventor Mike O'Dwyer has created a gun that can fire
over one million rounds per minute.
The principle involves a unit that houses dozens of barrels, each lined with a row of bullets. Electronic pulses set off traditional gunpowder, launching all bullets in a barrel at once. The pulses are staggered so that each barrel fires a fraction of a second before or after any other barrel.

Wired News reported in 2001: “In a test firing of 36 barrels, lashed together and firing full bore, the gun reduced a series of 15 wooden doors to toothpicks in just two-tenths of a second.” Since then, a protoype has been developed in which the 36 barrels are no longer tied together but are housed in one unit, called a pod.

The US and Australian militaries have granted O'Dwyer's Metal Storm company over $100 million for further development of this mega-gun.

11

Pen gun

Yes, Virginia, there really are guns disguised as pens. America's Office of Special Services and Britain's Special Operation Executive used them in WWII, and Stinger Manufacturing currently makes one, which it claims is the only legal model in the world. Their PenGun looks like a steel pen until you bend it in half, causing the trigger to pop out. You then have a .22 pistol with a single shot. In a related vein, the company's KnifeGun looks like a typical 3.7-inch buck knife, and it does indeed have a retractable blade. But it also has a retractable barrel, which fires a single .22 slug.

12

Rectal knife

Made to be smuggled into controlled settings, like prison, it looks like a slim, three-inch metal tube tucked far up your rear. Unscrew the top, which has a long spike attached, and screw it back on with spike facing outward. Also known as an “arse shiv.”

13

Umbrella poison gun

The most famous victim of this weapon is Bulgarian dissident writer Georgi Markov, who had defected to the UK. In September 1979, he was walking across Waterloo Bridge when he felt a jab in the back of his thigh. A man carrying an umbrella apologized and quickly left the area. By the next morning, Markov was in dire straits, and in a few days he died. The umbrella had been rigged to fire a ricin-containing pellet the size of a pinhead. After Bulgaria's communist government fell, it was revealed that they were behind the assassination.