Will Grigg?s Liberty Minute

May 16, 2013

Sometimes the most unpleasant and important truths are disclosed in unintended ways.

Clive Stafford Smith, a British human rights activist, is the head of the legal group Reprieve, which documents abuses inflicted on detainees at theGuantanamoBayprison camp. In a letter to British Foreign Secretary William Hague, Smith reported that several detainees ? among them British citizens such as Shaker Aamer ? have been required to undergo invasive body cavity searches before being permitted to meet with their lawyers.

Those conversations do not take place face-to-face, but rather by telephone through a transparent barrier. There is no danger to the lawyers. Smith describes this requirement as a pretext ? a means of punishing prisoners who are seeking legal counsel. Wrote Smith: ?The prisoners do not need to be sexually assaulted in order to be taken to a telephone to talk to their lawyer.?

Speaking on behalf of military officials atGuantanamo, Lt. Col. Samuel House denied that the searches are abusive.

According to House, the searches imposed on Gitmo detainees ?are conducted with clothes on, similar to pat-down searches conducted by an airport security screener.?

Doesn?t this mean that it is standard operating procedure for TSA screeners to treat innocent American air travelers as if they were Gitmo detainees?

Let us take back the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free.