Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and Congresswoman Jane Harman (D-CA) just introduced House bills to restore habeas corpus and other rights to the detainees. They are the The "Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2007" and "Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007.

The ACLU says:

"Congressman Nadler and Congresswoman Harman are true patriots for standing up for Constitutional rights and the rule of law," said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. "We urge Congress to act quickly to restore due process and correct the mistake it made in passing the Military Commissions Act last year. The Nadler-Harman bills reaffirm America’s commitment to fairness and freedom."

As to the two bills:

It has long been speculated that Poland is one of the countries that housed CIA secret prisoners in the war on terror. A report by the European Commission over a year ago found evidence the U.S. outsourced torture, but none that facilities were located in Poland.

Larisa Alexandrovna and David Dastych, writing for Raw Story today, confirm it, based upon interviews with British and Polish intelligence officials.

More....

The New York Times presents its "must do" list for President Bush. Excellent choices include:

• Restore Habeas Corpus

• Stop Illegal Spying

• Ban Torture, Really

In addition, the Times says, he must close secret prisons, account for the ghost prisoners, ban extraordinary rendition, tighten the definition of enemy combatant, fairly screen prisoners, ban secret and tainted evidence, better define "classified evidence" and respect the right to counsel.

It may be a to-do list for Bush, but I hope the Democrats are reading and listening. These are many of the issues we expected them to lead on when we voted in November.

Time to get busy.

The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed the lawsuit by wrongly kidnapped and detained (and allegedly tortured) Khaled El-Masri. The opinion is here.

The ACLU may appeal to the Supreme Court. In a statement today, the ACLU says:

Although El-Masri’s case has been discussed and investigated throughout the world, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that it could not be either discussed or reviewed in an American court because of the government’s invocation of the “state secrets” privilege.

“Regrettably, today’s decision allows CIA officials to disregard the law with impunity by making it virtually impossible to challenge their actions in court,” said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. “With today’s ruling, the state secrets doctrine has become a shield that covers even the most blatant abuses of power.”

More

After 5 years in captivity at Guantanamo, Australian David Hicks was charged with a terror crime Thursday, for which he will face trial by military tribunal.

A charge of attempted murder was rejected, and Hicks will be tried for the catch-all crime of providing material support to terrorists.

Under the Military Commissions Act, Hicks must be arraigned within 30 days and a military judge will have 120 days to form the military commission.

As to the specific acts Hicks is believed to have committed:

Yesterday I wrote about the new Human Rights Watch report on the missing CIA prisoners who were whisked off to secret prisons on Ghost Air.

Today, the Washington Post publishes its series of interviews with Marwan Jabour, a prisoner seized in 2004 who was released in 2006.

First note: Jabour, HRW and intelligence officials say the number of secret prisoners far exceed the 14 President Bush said were transferred to Guantanamo. HRW has 38 unaccounted for, an intelligence official says more than 60 were held.

On to Jabour's account of his detention and torture. First, there's the "villa at Islamabad."

Human Rights Watch issued a 50 page report yesterday on missing prisoners from secret CIA prisons or Guantanamo, most of whom are unaccounted for after flights on Ghost Air.

"President Bush told us that the last 14 CIA prisoners were sent to Guantanamo, but there are many other prisoners 'disappeared' by the CIA whose fate is still unknown," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counter-terrorism director at Human Rights Watch. "The question is: What happened to these people and where are they now?"

HRW noted that in September 2006, 14 detainees were moved from secret CIA jails to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. On Sept. 6, U.S. President George W. Bush said that following that move, there were no more captives in secret CIA installations.

However, HRW said it had two lists of former detainees who were still missing and that it had sent their names to the U.S. president.

President Bush must provide a full accounting of those seized, held and transferred. Nothing less is acceptable.

Northern light:

Canada’s highest court on Friday unanimously struck down a law that allows the Canadian government to detain foreign-born terrorism suspects indefinitely using secret evidence and without charges while their deportations are being reviewed.

....“The overarching principle of fundamental justice that applies here is this: before the state can detain people for significant periods of time, it must accord them a fair judicial process,” Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote in the ruling.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers today issued this press release on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals decision denying habeas rights to Guantanamo detainees:

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers is extremely disappointed in the decision in which a divided panel on the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that none of the prisoners at Guantanamo Naval Base have any right to challenge their indefinite imprisonment in federal court. The court ruled, in effect, that the United States can imprison people virtually forever without judicial review.

These prisoners were captured by the United States, are confined in prisons built by the United States, are guarded by members of the United States Armed Forces, are subjected to interrogation by the United States intelligence services, and may be imprisoned for the rest of their lives, yet they cannot even petition a court for a writ of habeas corpus for determination whether their imprisonment was the result of a mistake.

A judge in Italy has ordered 26 people, most of them CIA agents, to stand trial on kidnapping charges. In 2003, Egyptian cleric Osama Mustafa Hassan was kidnapped in Italy and flown to an Egyptian prison where he alleges he was tortured.

Now the question is, will Italy seek extradition of the CIA agents from the U.S.

Lawyers say they have compiled thousands of pages of documents and testimony from Italian agents past and present, some of whom have acknowledged working with the US in planning the abduction. The trial is due to begin on 8 June.

Here's more on Ghost Air.

Guantanamo has been a well documented embarrassment. John Murtha is looking for a way to force the military to close the detention center.

"We're looking at a schedule -- a reasonable schedule -- to close it down in stages," Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., said on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. "We can limit the funds for it, and that would shut it down."

Maybe, maybe not.

The Pentagon declined to respond to a query about Murtha's plan -- how feasible the proposal is and whether there is in fact Guantánamo-specific funding that Congress could cut from future appropriations.

The Pentagon announced today that an investigation of prisoner abuse claims at Guantanamo were unfounded. Of course, they didn't bother to interview any of the detainees.

The investigation was initiated after Marine Sgt. Heather Cerveny advised the military that she heard a conversation among guards at a bar in which "they described beating detainees as common practice."