Transparency

MIAMI HERALD | MiamiHerald.com

H1

TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 2013 | 3A

THE NATION GUANTANAMO

Herald suit yields names of ‘indefinite detainees’ ■ In response to a suit by the Miami Herald suit, the feds released the names of 48 men deemed too dangerous to release but ineligible for trial. BY CAROL ROSENBERG [email protected]

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — The Obama administration Monday lifted a veil of secrecy surrounding the status of the detainees at Guantánamo, for the first time publicly naming the four dozen captives it defined as indefinite detainees — men too dangerous to transfer but who cannot be tried in a court of law. The names had been a closely held secret since a multi-agency task force sifted through the files of the Guantánamo detainees in 2009 trying to achieve President Barack Obama’s executive order to close the detention center. In January 2010, the task force revealed that it classified 48 Guantánamo captives as dangerous but ineligible for trial because of a lack of evidence, or because the evidence was too tainted. They became so-called “indefinite detainees,” a form of war prisoner held

under Congress’ 2001 “Authorization for Use of Military Force.” The Defense Department released the list to the Miami Herald, which, with the assistance of Yale Law School students, had sued for it in federal court in Washington, D.C. The Pentagon also sent the list to the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on Monday, a Defense Department official said. 26 YEMENIS According to the list, the men designated for indefinite detention are 26 Yemenis, 12 Afghans, 3 Saudis, 2 Kuwaitis, 2 Libyans, a Kenyan, a Moroccan and a Somali. Human rights groups denounced the existence of such a list. Amnesty International’s Zeke Johnson called “fundamentally flawed” the notion of classifying captives as indefinite detainees. “Under international human rights law,” he said, “all of the de-

NATION BRIEFS

VARIOUS REASONS Administration officials have through the years described a variety of reasons why the men could not face trial: Evidence against some of the indefinite detainees was too tainted by CIA or other interrogation torture or abuse to be admissible in a court; insufficient evidence to prove an individual detainee had committed a crime; or military intelligence opinions that certain captives had undertaken suicide or other type of terrorist training, and

had vowed to engage in an attack on release. In all, the list identifies 34 candidates for prosecution. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, the Pentagon’s chief war crimes prosecutor, said Sunday night that fewer than those 34 men will be prosecuted because of federal court rulings that disqualified “providing material support for terror” as a war crime in most if not all Guantánamo cases. At Human Rights Watch, senior counterterrorism counsel Andrea Prasow called the list “a fascinating window into the Obama administration’s thinking circa January 2010” but both flawed and somewhat irrelevant today. “Many of the detainees designated for prosecution can only be prosecuted in civilian court,” she said. “So, unless Congress lifts the restrictions banning their transfer, they are effectively ‘indefinite detainees.’ ” She also noted that, since the list was drawn up, the Obama administration was reportedly considering transferring five Afghan Taliban to custody of the

Qatari government in exchange for the release of U.S. POW Bowe Bergdahl. The Wall Street Journal named the five men and all appear on the list released Monday as indefinite detainees: Mullah Mohammad Fazl, Mullah Norullah Noori, Mohammed Nabi, Khairullah Khairkhwa and Abdul Haq Wasiq. The Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg, with the assistance of the Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic at the Yale Law School, filed suit in federal court in Washington, D.C., in March for the list under the Freedom of Information Act. The students, in collaboration with Washington attorney Jay Brown, represented Rosenberg in a lawsuit that specifically sought the names of the 46 surviving prisoners. Monday, hours before the release of the names, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler had set a July 8 deadline for the government to update the court on its classification review. The Justice Department gave the list to Brown, who in turn gave it to Rosenberg.

Pretrial hearings resume at Guantánamo

Investigators ‘zeroing in’ on cause of wildfire COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Rain helped firefighters douse Colorado’s most destructive wildfire in state history, while a new wind-whipped blaze in California forced evacuations and threatened homes Monday near Yosemite National Park. Investigators believed Colorado’s Black Forest Fire was human-caused, and were going through the charred remains of luxury homes destroyed and damaged in it last week. Even though the fire was mostly contained, officials were not letting victims back into the most developed area where there was concentrated devastation from the fire because the area was being treated as a possible crime scene. Residents have been anxious to return but investigators want to preserve evidence, and firefighters also are working to make sure the interior of the burn area is safe, by putting out hot spots and removing trees in danger of falling.

• NEW YORK 14 7-ELEVENS SEIZED IN IMMIGRATION RAID Federal authorities seized 14 7-Eleven stores on Long Island, N.Y., and in Virginia on Monday, charging nine owners and managers with harboring and hiring dozens of undocumented immigrants and paying them using sham Social Security numbers, officials said. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and federal prosecutors in Brooklyn were also investigating 40 7-Eleven franchises in New York City and elsewhere, in one of the largest criminal immigrant employment investigations ever conducted by the Justice and Homeland Security Departments, officials said. The franchises split their profits with the 7-Eleven parent corporation, which handles the store payrolls, and prosecutors were seeking $30 million in forfeiture from the stores and the corporate parent.

• MILITARY ACADEMY MOVES AHEAD ON ASSAULT CASE ANNAPOLIS, Md. — The U.S. Naval Academy’s superintendent has decided to move ahead with proceedings in a sexual assault case involving football players and a female midshipman. The academy announced Monday that Vice Adm. Michael Miller has decided to send the case to Article 32 proceedings. That is the military equivalent of a preliminary hearing or grand jury investigation. The woman says the assault took place at an offcampus house in Annapolis last year. The case comes as a string of sexual assault cases in the military has drawn recent attention in Congress, the Pentagon and the White House.

• HURRICANE SEASON TROPICAL DEPRESSION FORMS NEAR BELIZE MIAMI — A tropical depression has formed off the coast of Belize and forecasters say it is expected to bring as much as five inches of rain to parts of Belize, Guatemala and northern Honduras. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said the Atlantic season’s second tropical depression formed Monday. The depression has winds of 35 mph. Some weakening is expected after the depression moves over Belize, but it could strengthen on Tuesday if the center emerges in the Bay of Campeche. MIAMI HERALD WIRE SERVICES

CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS A story on Page 1B Monday with the headline ‘Pet-rescue plan expected to pass’ included type that was transposed because of a production error. Here is a link to the complete story online: http://hrld.us/11KS7wJ

●

Miami Herald is published daily by the Miami Herald Media Company (USPS #344-200), 3511 NW 91st Avenue, Miami, Fla., 33172, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Company. Periodicals Postage Paid at Miami, Fla. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to 3511 NW 91st Avenue, Miami, Fla., 33172

Pub. date: Tuesday, June 18

tainees should either be charged and fairly tried in federal court, or released.” Some of the men on the list are among the prisoners currently on hunger strike and being force-fed at the prison, for example, Kuwaitis Fawzi al Odah, 36, and Fayez al Kandari, 35, and Yemeni Abdal Malik al Wahab, about 43, who in March, according to his lawyer, David Remes, vowed to fast until he got out of the prison “either dead or alive.” Two men on the list are deceased. Both Afghans, one committed suicide with a bedsheet in a recreation yard at Guantánamo’s Camp 6 for cooperative captives and the other died of a heart attack, also in Camp 6. So now the 166 captives at Guantánamo actually include 46 indefinite detainees. Two former CIA captives, held apart from the majority of Guantánamo’s prisoners as “high-value detainees” are also listed as indefinite

detainees: Mohammed Rahim, an Afghan man, and Somali Hassan Guleed.All the other ex-CIA captives were designated for trial. Those include accused al-Qaida kingpin Khalid Sheik Mohammed, 48, and four alleged fellow conspirators in the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11, 2001, who were in pretrial hearings at the war court this week. Also designated for trial was Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, 48, accused in the 2000 USS Cole attack that killed 17 American sailors, and, like Mohammed, facing a death-penalty tribunal.

WAR COURT

• COLORADO

Page: Nation

MiamiHerald.com/ guantanamo Get the full list of indefinite detainees

Last user: cci

BY BEN FOX Associated Press

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — Five Guantánamo Bay prisoners accused of helping orchestrate the Sept. 11 terror attacks returned to court Monday as arguments resumed over preparations for a trial that remains distant. It was the first time the five prisoners had been in court since February and they sat calmly through a morning’s worth of dense legalistic testimony, with none of the outbursts that characterized previous sessions. Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed terrorist mastermind and lead defendant, wore a camouflage jacket and white turban, his bushy gray beard

SKETCH BY JANET HAMLIN

FROM WASHINGTON STATE: Retired Navy Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, right, answers questions via a video link from Navy Cmdr. Walter Ruiz in Cuba. dyed reddish-orange. In the start of what is scheduled to be five days of hearings on pretrial motions, the defense questioned retired Navy Vice Adm. Bruce MacDonald, the

Pentagon legal official who oversaw the military tribunals until his term expired in March. The lawyers asked about rules that he approved governing attorney-client interactions in the case.

Defense lawyers called MacDonald in part to challenge the rules, which they say interfere with their ability to represent their clients, who are held under ultra-secure conditions in a section of Guantanamo reserved for men deemed by the Pentagon to be “high-value detainees.” Defense teams have argued that MacDonald may have been improperly swayed in approving the charges in the case in April 2012 and acted too quickly, not giving the lawyers enough time to prepare a response to the prosecution’s filing. He testified by video link from Washington state for the entire day and was scheduled to resume testifying Tuesday.

NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY

Obama: Secret data gathering ‘transparent’ ■ The president touted the setting up of FISA courts in his defense of the NSA programs, and encouraged a national debate on balancing privacy and security. BY KIMBERLY DOZIER Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama defended top secret National Security Agency spying programs as legal in a lengthy interview Monday, and called them transparent — even though they are authorized in secret. “It is transparent,” Obama told PBS’s Charlie Rose in an interview to be broadcast Monday. “That’s why we set up the FISA court,” he added, referring to the secret court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act that authorizes two recently disclosed programs: one that gathers U.S. phone records and another that is designed to track the use of U.S.-based Internet servers by foreigners with possible links to terrorism. The location of FISA courts is secret. The sessions are closed. The orders that result from hearings in which only government lawyers are present are classified. “We’re going to have to find ways where the public has an assurance that there are checks and balances in place … that their phone calls aren’t being listened into; their text messages aren’t being monitored, their emails are not being read by some big brother somewhere,” Obama said. Obama is in Northern Ireland for a meeting of leaders of allied countries. As Obama arrived, the latest series of Guardian articles drawing on the leaks claims that British eavesdropping agency GCHQ repeatedly hacked into foreign diplo-

Edition: 1st

Section, zone: Asection, Herald

mats’ phones and emails with U.S. help, in an effort to get an edge in such highstakes negotiations. Obama’s announcement follows an online chat Monday by Edward Snowden, the man who leaked documents revealing the scope of the two programs to The Guardian and The Washington Post. He accused members of Congress and administration officials of exaggerating their claims about the success of the data gathering programs, including pointing to the arrest of would-be New York subway bomber Najibullah Zazi in 2009. Snowden said Zazi could have been caught with narrower, targeted surveillance programs — a point Obama conceded in his Monday interview without mentioning Snowden. “We might have caught him some other way,” Obama said. “We might have disrupted it because a New York cop saw he was suspicious. Maybe he turned out to be incompetent and the bomb didn’t go off. But at the margins we are increasing our chances of preventing a catastrophe like that through these programs,” he said. Obama also told Rose he wanted to encourage a national debate on the balance between privacy and national security — a topic renewed by Snowden’s disclosures. Obama, who repeated earlier assertions that the programs were a legitimate counterterrorism tool and that they were completely noninvasive to people with no terror ties, said he has created a privacy and civil liberties oversight board.

Last change at: 23:1:46 June 17

• EU, U.S. agree on free-trade talk at G8 summit, 8B ●

Apple reports data requests, 4A

“I’ll be meeting with them. And what I want to do is to set up and structure a national conversation, not only about these two programs, but also the general problem of data, big data sets, because this is not going to be restricted to government entities,” he said. Congressional leaders have said Snowden’s disclosures have led terrorists to change their behavior, which may make them harder to stop — a charge Snowden discounted as an effort to silence him. “The U.S. government is not going to be able to cover this up by jailing or murdering me,” he said. He said the government “destroyed any possibility of a fair trial at home,” by labeling him a traitor, and indicated he would not return to the U.S. voluntarily. Congressional leaders have accused Snowden of treason for revealing oncesecret surveillance programs two weeks ago in the Guardian and The Washington Post. The National Security Agency programs collect records of millions of Americans’ telephone calls and Internet usage. The disclosures revealed the scope of the collections, which surprised many Americans and have sparked debate about how much privacy the government can take away in the name of national security. “It would be foolish to volunteer yourself to” possible arrest and criminal charges “if you can do more good outside of prison than in it,” he said. Snowden dismissed being called a traitor by former Vice President Dick Cheney,

who made the allegations in an interview this week on Fox News Sunday. Cheney was echoing the comments of both Democratic and Republican leadership on Capitol Hill, including Senate Intelligence committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein. “Being called a traitor by Dick Cheney is the highest honor you can give an American, and the more panicked talk we hear from people like him, Feinstein … the better off we all are,” Snowden said. The Guardian announced that its website was hosting an online chat with Snowden, in hiding in Hong Kong, with reporter Glenn Greenwald receiving and posting his questions. The Associated Press couldn’t independently verify that Snowden was the man who posted 19 replies to questions. In answer to the question of whether he fled to Hong Kong because he was spying for China, Snowden wrote, “Ask yourself: if I were a Chinese spy, why wouldn’t I have flown directly into Beijing? I could be living in a palace petting a phoenix by now.” He said later, “I have had no contact with the Chinese government.” Snowden was working as a systems analyst contractor for NSA at the time he had access to the then-secret programs. He defended his actions and said he considered what to reveal, saying he did not reveal any U.S. operations against what he called legitimate military targets, but instead showed that the NSA is hacking civilian infrastructure like universities and private businesses.

FSU, AUBURN TO BATTLE IN TITLE GAME

MIAMI TO MAKE DOWNTOWN EASIER FOR PEDESTRIANS

SPORTS, 1D

LOCAL & STATE, 1B

New CNB Stellar Loan Product 15 Year Fixed Commercial Mortgages At Low Rates for Qualified Borrowers Call 305-643-8270 With us, it is about you. Member FDIC

www.continentalbank.com

M O N D AY , D E C E M B E R 9 , 2 0 1 3 | 7 5 C E N T S | B R O WA R D & K E Y S E D I T I O N | M I A M I H E R A L D .C O M

H1

RICK SCOTT’S JOBS RECORD: SECOND OF THREE PARTS

BUSINESS MONDAY

Gov. Rick Scott’s ‘lost’ jobs

Think you’ve got what it takes to be a food entrepreneur? See what some folks are cooking up.

■ The untold chapter in Gov. Rick Scott’s jobs story: the thousands of lost jobs in every sector and region of the state.

MONDAY

NATIVE HEARING A new Justice Department-sponsored task force holds its first hearing, in Bismark, N.D., to examine the impact of exposure to violence on American Indian and Alaska Native children. Three subsequent hearings will be held next year — in Phoenix, Fort Lauderdale and Anchorage.

TUESDAY

BY MARY ELLEN KLAS AND KATHLEEN MCGRORY Herald/Times Tallahassee Bureau

HAWTHORNE — For nearly three decades, this rural community in North Central Florida was home to a bustling mill that was the

principal employer for its 1,400 residents. Then, in November 2011, the recession-induced collapse of the housing market forced Georgia-Pacific to close its plywood plant. All 400 employees were

sent scrambling to find work — weeks before the holidays. And the mill that once produced the sawdustcovered staples of the state’s housing market stood idle, cutting off the lifeblood of the local economy. “The mill was a boost to the entire town — the schools, churches, local businesses,” said Pastor Joe

Williams. “All of a sudden, all that disappeared.” Now, after two years, the mill stands shuttered. Many of its employees have found other jobs but at lower wages, and local community leaders, who had hoped to get help from the state, say they are on their own.

Coming Tuesday: PolitiFact charts Gov. Rick Scott’s promise of 700,000 private-sector jobs in 7 years. More coverage: What happens when state dollars don’t pay dividends, 1B Interactive database: Scott’s Job tracker Scan this QR code

• TURN TO JOBS, 2A

NFL WEEK 14 | DOLPHINS 34, STEELERS 28

WAR ON TERRORISM

WEATHERING THE STORM

Military retracts Gitmo PTSD claim

HUMAN RIGHTS DAY By proclamation of the UN General Assembly, it’s Human Rights Day to bring to the attention of the world the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

AIR CRASH PROBE The National Transportation Safety board opens a two-day hearing on the July 6 crash of an Asiana Boeing 777 jet that hit a seawall and slammed into the runway at San Francisco International Airport. Three Chinese girls were killed.

■ A military spokesman said a top Guantánamo guard misspoke on PTSD levels among guards being twice that of combat troops. BY CAROL ROSENBERG [email protected]

NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY IN OSLO The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons receives the Nobel Peace Prize in a ceremony at Oslo City Hall.

WEDNESDAY

SENIORS RX The Senate Committee on Aging holds a hearing on how to protect seniors from medication labeling mistakes.

THURSDAY

GOLDEN GLOBES The Hollywood Foreign Press Association reveals the nominees for the Golden Globe Awards at 8 a.m.

FRIDAY

AL DIAZ/MIAMI HERALD STAFF

Miami’s Charles Clay breaks a tackle to score late against Pittsburgh in the fourth quarter of a snow-filled romp at Heinz Field that improved the Dolphins’ record to 7-6 and lifted from the basement fans’ hopes for a playoff berth. Story, 1C

View a photo gallery from the game MiamiHerald.com/ photos

The U.S. military is retracting a claim made to 60 Minutes that Guantánamo guards suffer nearly twice as much post-traumatic stress disorder as combat troops. “There are no statistics that support the claim of twice the number of troops diagnosed with PTSD,” said Army Col. Greg Julian of the U.S. Southern Command in response to a query from the Miami Herald. Southcom has oversight of the 12-year-old detention center, including the consequences of duty there on the thousands of troops who have guarded the Guantánamo prisoners. At its height, the prison held about 660 men at the sprawling detention-center complex. Now, a

• TURN TO DISORDER, 13A

HOBBIT RETURNS “The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug,” the second in Peter Jackson’s trilogy based on the JRR Tolkien novel, opens.

SMOKING

E-cigs, a new frontier for parents’ fears ■ Even as traditional cigarette use has decreased, more minors are attracted to the accessibility and coolness factor of e-cigs.

SATURDAY

HEAT HOME The Heat is back at the Triple A after its road trip for five straight games that started with Cleveland.

SUNDAY

DOLPHINS HOME The Dolphins play the New England Patriots at 1 p.m., CBS.

BY ANA VECIANA-SUAREZ [email protected]

Albert tried his first electronic cigarette last year, when he was 14. He liked it ED ANDRIESKI/AP so much — mint is his favorUNCHARTED: Even as traditional cigarette use is ite flavor — that he “vapes” decreasing, a federal report showed a spike in e-cig with his friends whenever a use among middle and high school students. group of them has enough of

these unregulated, vaporonly cigs to pass around. “It’s the coolest thing out,” says the Killian High 10th-grader. Most adults think otherwise. Albert, who asked that his real name not be used because his parents don’t know his vaping habits, are part of what public health officials consider a growing trend that saw e-cigarette use among minors double in a single year. At Wednesday’s meeting of the Miami-

Dade School Board, member Raquel Regalado will propose adding an e-cigarette ban to the Student Code of Conduct. “They need to be treated as regular cigarettes,” she said. “Right now, we don’t have a standardized policy. Some teachers confiscate them and others don’t. We shouldn’t leave something like that to a judgment call.” Even as traditional ciga-

• TURN TO E-CIGS, 13A

With us, it is about you. New CNB Stellar Loan Product 15 Year Fixed Commercial Mortgages At Low Rates for Qualified Borrowers Call 305-643-8270 www.continentalbank.com

Member FDIC

Connect with us Online: MiamiHerald.com/service Phone: 1-800-843-4372 Follow us on Facebook and Twitter

Weather, 10B $59 spa package (regularly $125) at Tranquility at Doral

Page: Asection_f

83 | 72 Isolated showers, winds

Pub. date: Monday, December 9

Last user: cci

Edition: 1st


Inside today’s Herald Classified .........19G Comics ..............9B Deaths ..............4B Lottery ..............2B

Last change at: 23:2:2 December 8

Movies ...............7B People ..............8A Puzzles ..............8B Television ..........7B

111th year, No. 86 ©2013

MIAMI HERALD | MiamiHerald.com JOBS IN FLORIDA: THE RICK SCOTT RECORD

For some, jobs plan not working • JOBS, FROM 2A sociation, said Florida’s manufacturing deficit is in part a result of the state’s lack of skilled talent. “On any given day in Florida, 4,500 to 5,000 manufacturing jobs go unfilled because of the lack of skill,’’ she said. And many existing companies are being lured away by other states. “It’s not China that Florida is worried about,’’ she said. “It’s Georgia and the Carolinas.’’ Meanwhile, for communities that lose a major manufacturer, it can be nearly impossible to find a replacement. HAWTHORNE STORY In Hawthorne, it’s been two years since the paper mill closed. Rumors abound that the plant will reopen, but Georgia-Pacific says it has no immediate plans to start up operations. The Ace Hardware in downtown Hawthorne saw its business drop by half, said owner Robert Bristow. Dianne’s Old Time Barbeque laid off half its waitresses and the cashier as the lunchtime crowd virtually disappeared. Local timber companies lost their only customer. And for the laid off employees who found new jobs, most could not replace the wages and benefits offered by Georgia Pacific “Me and my family, we didn’t cry — we did what we had to do,” said Troy Browning, 32, who sorted plywood at the mill since age 19. He found a job washing buses in Gainesville — and his hourly wage dipped from $14.63 to $8. Alex McCoy, chief economic developer in Putnam County, where the GeorgiaPacific mill was based, said the county has been trying to attract new manufacturing jobs by touting its specialized workforce, electric generating stations, and proximity to rail and the St. Johns River. “We’ve worked with Enterprise Florida on several projects,” McCoy said. “Unfortunately, while some folks have test driven the car, they haven’t decided to buy it yet.” Swoope, of Enterprise Florida, urges patience. “You cannot have a large employer like that go out of business and then expect somebody to step in in a month,’’ he said. “It’s just not going to happen. We help our communities think about what can they do to develop their assets.” Surrency, the mayor of Hawthorne, isn’t holding his breath. Instead of waiting for a new manufacturing outfit to come to town, Hawthorne is pinning its hopes on a largescale development project being considered for the region. “We want to be able to train and educate our residents,” he said. “We just don’t know what [the jobs] are going to be yet.” Mary Ellen Klas can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @MaryEllenKlas. Kathleen McGrory can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @kmcgrory.

H1

WAR ON TERRORISM

Military retracts Guantánamo PTSD claim • DISORDER, FROM 1A

The retraction, verbatim

staff of about 2,100 troops and contractors holds 162 captives, 82 of them cleared for release. Army Col. John V. Bogdan, the current commander of the guard force, offered up the surprising Cuba-to-battlefield ratio of PTSD in a September interview with CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl. It aired Nov. 17, without verification, and was echoed in a BBC broadcast Nov. 20 by the female Army captain in charge of Guantánamo’s maximum-security prison, Camp 5, where, she said, a captive on most days hurls at a guard a home-made brew that can include excrement, blood, semen and urine. She told the BBC her guards suffer PTSD as a consequence of “that constant threat of being in enemy contact for up to 12 hours at a time,” and said the prison’s Public Affairs Officer or guard’s mentalhealth unit could provide precise statistics. But, after weeks of research from the island prison to the Pentagon, Julian — Southcom’s Public Affairs Officer — said late Friday: “Col. Bogdan was mis-

‘Colonel Bogdan was mistaken about twice the level of PTSD among JTF personnel, a U.S. Army Personnel Health Command survey said the conditions there might contribute to increased levels of behavioral health issues. There are no statistics that support the claim of twice the number of troops diagnosed with PTSD. ‘In 2011 the Army conducted a study of Soldiers assigned to Guantanamo Bay detention duty. Medical records were reviewed for 19 service members who were medically evacuated for a variety of behavioral health issues. Additionally, 1,590 service members who were assigned to Guantanamo Bay in January 2011 participated in a survey of occupational health and wellbeing. The survey revealed that these service members were nearly twice as likely (though not actually diagnosed) to screen positive for moderate to severe posttraumatic stress as Soldiers surveyed in previous studies who had recently redeployed from Iraq or Afghanistan.’ — Army Col. Greg Julian, spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command, which has oversight of Joint Task Force-Guantanamo, (JTFGTMO) the temporary, rotational forces that run the detention center.

‘Jobs in Florida: The Rick Scott Record’ is a three-part project of the joint Tallahassee Bureau of the Miami Herald and Tampa Bay Times. Herald and Times reporters spent more than six months collecting and analyzing jobs data, including hundreds of layoff notices and state-crafted jobsincentive deals. Data comes from the state Department of Economic Opportunity, Gov. Rick Scott’s office and the U.S. Department of Labor Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notifications. The reporters: Steve Bousquet, Mary Ellen Klas, Tia Mitchell, Kathleen McGrory, Katie Sanders and Michael Van Sickler. Multimedia: Lazaro Gamio of the Miami Herald. Editors: Aaron Sharockman of the Tampa Bay Times and Sergio Bustos of the Miami Herald.

Page: Asection_10

taken about twice the level of PTSD.” Julian attributed the error, in part, to a misreading of a study coupled with a misunderstanding of the distinction between an actual PTSD diagnosis and the stress that troops experience at Guantánamo — an isolated outpost with an unpopular mission where the Army captain said her troops work 14- to 16-hour days. A reading of a January 2011 survey of the “occupational health and wellbeing” of 1,590 troops assigned to the detention center, according to Julian, found that those particular Guantánamo troops “were nearly twice as likely

[though not actually diagnosed] to screen positive for moderate to severe post-traumatic stress, as soldiers surveyed in previous studies who had recently redeployed from Iraq or Afghanistan.” Julian would not provide a copy of the study. Bogdan invoked the nowretracted figure after showing 60 Minutes, exclusively, a prison-camp disciplinary block called 5 Echo. He said he granted CBS rare, uncensored access to cast a spotlight on his guards, who spend their time at Guantánamo “performing admirably” and “working their asses off ” through fearful, 12-hour shifts of “enemy contact” that might harm

them. Bogdan: The incidence of PTSD is almost twice that seen from regular aligned forces. Stahl: Twice what they see on the battlefield? Bogdan: Uh-huh. Bogdan’s citing such a statistic was surprising because, across years of inquiries, military spokesmen repeatedly said there was no way to quantify PTSD diagnoses of the thousands of troops who have worked at the prison since it opened in January 2002. Guantánamo guards have come and gone on 6- to 24-month rotations and have included Army, Navy and, briefly, Marine enlisted forces — from mix-and-match deployments that also included National Guard and Reserve units. Today, the prison has mostly Military Police, an Army specialty. They are trained for the job and have done tours in Iraq or Afghanistan. For several years, the military used sailors whose specialty was not military policing but were trained specially for the temporary guard mission. Military spokesmen have said the mix-and-match approach, coupled with constant rotations, made it impossible to track the mental-

health effects of the job after guards left Guantánamo. Veterans Affairs spokesmen similarly said they had no way to know how many PTSD cases resulted from duty at the prison camps. In fact, however, the military had conducted studies of stress on Guantánamo guards. And none supported Bogdan’s claim, according to military sources who saw a synopsis of the reports but spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the sensitive issue. The studies cited “splashings” and contact with the detainees as sources of stress at Guantánamo, according to those sources, but the stress was also attributed the prison’s 12-hour shifts, guards’ distances from their families and widespread use of alcohol at Guantánamo. Note: Guantánamo is different from the other post-9/ 11 war-on-terror deployments. Unlike troops sent to Iraq and Afghanistan, where consumption of alcohol has always been forbidden, it’s plentiful at Guantánamo — which has several bars and low-cost liquor retail sales at the commissaries. Prison camp staff members are also allowed to have family members come for visits.

SMOKING

Spike in e-cigs has parents, teachers raising red flags • E-CIGS, FROM 1A rette use is decreasing, a report released last month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed a sharp spike in e-cig experimentation among U.S. middle and high school students between 2011 and 2012. That has raised concern among both educators and public health officials, who fear that e-cigs may be an entry point to the use of conventional tobacco products. “We know that if kids start with e-cigarettes, there’s the potential for them to move on to cigarettes,” said Tim McAfee, director of the CDC Office on Smoking and Health. “About 90 percent of all smokers begin smoking as teenagers, so it’s very important that we keep our young people from using or experimenting with any tobacco product.” An estimated 1.78 million children and teens in the U.S. used e-cigs last year, according to the CDC report, many of them prompted by the easy accessibility and the coolness factor. Ecigarettes look like traditional cigarettes but are battery-powered devices that provide doses of nicotine and other additives in an aerosol. They’re also cheaper and come in a variety of designs and flavors. They are often used as a tool to help smokers quit conventional cigarettes, and are seen by some as a less harmful alternative. But McAfee and others are skeptical of these claims. As the Food and Drug

lp He g pe rin ot Hy a d He Ng Ai in ar He

Administration studies how to deal with e-cigs, state and local officials are working on their own bans. As in Miami-Dade, Broward educators are working on a policy that will be presented for public comment in mid-December, said Amalio Nieves, director of prevention for Broward schools. He hopes a ban will be in effect for the 2014-’15 school year. “We’re not hearing that it’s a problem yet, but we want to be proactive about this,” Nieves said. “We’re concerned for our youth, that this may be an entryway” for regular cigarettes. In Tallahassee, a Senate bill sponsored by Lizbeth Benacquisto, a Fort Myers Republican, unanimously passed the regulated industries committee in November and moved on to the criminal justice committee. Senate Bill 224 prohibits the sale of electronic cigarettes and other alternative tobacco products to minors. “Nicotine,” McAfee said, “is highly addictive. Just because it’s safer than a cigarette doesn’t mean it’s safe. We already know that nicotine can interfere with adolescent brain development.” Though the e-cig market is fragmented, growth has been explosive. A Wells Fargo Securities study predicted retail and online sales would jump by 240 percent or more this year. “They’re crazy popular,” Regalado said, “and not just as a [smoking] cessation device. Kids are buying them without a problem.” Many blame the increased

use of e-cigs by teens on the lack of federal regulation. Selling regular cigarettes to minors is illegal, but there is no such law for e-cigarettes. “You can just go out and buy them,” said Arlett Gonzalez, president of the Students Working Against Tobacco prevention club at Westland Hialeah High School. “There’s no age limit and no one asks you any questions.” Arlett has noticed more of her peers vaping every year, even as her club members diligently hand out information about e-cigs and help with special educational programs, such as the Great American Smokeout in November. “I see them in the movies, in the mall, anywhere teenagers hang out,” she said. “They’re not hard to find.” The FDA has announced its intent to issue a rule regulating e-cigs and other tobacco products under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, but this may take months and the FDA does not comment on proposed regulations. In a prepared statement, a spokesperson said in an email: “Further research is needed to assess the potential public health benefits and risks of electronic cigarettes and other novel tobacco products.” No one doubts that the FDA will get around to regulating e-cigs. In the meantime, the debate over the risks — and the potential benefits — of the product has grown more heated. The e-cigarette industry association backs a ban on sales to minors.

THE BEST HEARING AIDS IN THE WORLD @ THE LOWEST PRICES IN THE COUNTRY

Value Hearing Care Provides hearing aids at the Lowest Prices in the country delivered with a complete package of value added benefits coupled with unequaled hearing aid experience. ITE

100% Digital

About the series

MONDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2013 | 13A

ITC

CIC

OPEN FIT

$599

$599

$750

Featuring SIEMENS HEARING AIDS Starting At

$599

Prices Significantly Better Than: • Any Competitor’s Advertised Sales Promotion or Warehouse Club Prices • All HMO Insurance Plans or AARP Benefits

ALL MODELS & BRAND NAMES FOR LESS! Call for an appointment or brochure - visit our website to become an educated consumer Visit Us At: www.valuehearingcare.com Website available in Spanish “Hearing Aids For Today’s Educated Consumer”

1-888-443-2725

For An Appt North Miami • Pembroke Pines • Cooper City • Davie • Hollywood Ft. Lauderdale • Boca • Boynton • Palm Beach Gardens • Lake Worth • WPB

SUPPORT OUR LOCAL FOOD BANKS

Pub. date: Monday, December 9

Last user: cci

Edition: 1st


“We consider this a tobacco product,” said Tom Kiklas, CFO of the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association. “We agree this should not be sold or marketed to minors.” Some local retailers agree. Eric Stein, store manager at Navarro Pharmacy in Memorial Hospital in Broward, stocks one brand of e-cigs and uses them himself, but he refuses to sell them to teens. “My policy is I don’t do it. I don’t promote. I don’t think children should be smoking anything.” VMR, the parent company of V2, the Miami-based, third-largest e-cig vendor in the country, does not sell or market to minors. They voluntarily label their products “Underage Sale Prohibited” and support youth bans. A VMR spokesman said in an email that the company helped found the Smoke Free Alternatives Trade Association to engage “state and federal agencies to craft and implement needed, responsible regulations, for issues like youth access.” However, anti-tobacco advocates maintain that, regardless of the industry association’s position, e-cig manufacturers and retailers are taking a page from Big Tobacco’s playbook to market the product to minors. Valencia Morris, the Tobacco Prevention Specialist in Miami-Dade for the Florida Department of Health, cites celebrity endorsers, including TV personality Jenny McCarthy and rock musician Courtney Love, as an example of the effort to attract teens. “They make it sound like the product is cool and

trendy and sexy,” Morris said of ads featuring such stars. “The kids see that and they want to try it.” Teens who use e-cigs believe they’re safer than traditional cigarettes. Albert, the 10th grader who vapes socially, said he’s confident he won’t get addicted. “I don’t have an affinity for it,” he said. “If it’s present, I’ll try. I don’t go looking for it.” That sentiment is not uncommon. The American Journal of Public Health reported last year that 53 percent of young adults who had heard of e-cigs thought they were less harmful than traditional cigarettes, and the FDA maintains there hasn’t been enough research to pass final judgment. However, a 2009 FDA analysis of 19 varieties of ecigs found that half contained nitrosamines, the same carcinogen found in real cigarettes, and many contained diethylene glycol, the poisonous ingredient in antifreeze. The CDC’s McAfee calls e-cigs a “starter product” with the potential to get kids hooked on more serious tobacco products. Industry spokesman Kiklas calls such statements “irresponsible. If you’re going to say they are a gateway product to cigarettes, then show me the study.” For school board member Regalado, the potential for harm goes beyond the vaporized chemicals. She’s alarmed at the e-cig’s growing popularity — and adults’ lack of knowledge about them.” “I’ve talked to a lot of parents and they’re completely clueless about them.”

ONE EASY MonthlyPayment all outstanding bills, debts, credit cards Get help! Quick personal debt consolidation business loans Home improvement bad credit, no application fee. CallToday: 800-807-1229

Touchmarkacc@ﬁnancier.com

Last change at: 23:2:28 December 8

Today’s Deal: $29 for a 1-hour massage - Mid Beach Chiropractic WARM SUN, A FEW STORMS

HIGH 90 | LOW 76

TAKING THEIR BEST SHOT

FOSTER CARE PROVIDERS: DCF IN POWER PLAY

● GAME 3 — AND SERIES — WILL REST ON WHICH TEAM HITS ITS OPEN SHOTS, 1D ● THE WORLD IS WATCHING, STORY BELOW

AGENCY TRIES TO TIGHTEN CONTROL,1B

The Best Service On Diesel Trucks In Miami! 8155 W. Flagler St. • 888-864-6511 • MidwayMiami.com

H1

75 CENTS

TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 2013

MiamiHerald.com

110TH YEAR, NO. 270 ©2013

BROWARD & KEYS EDITION

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE

BROWARD SCHOOLS | BLACK MALE STUDENTS

New layer of secrecy at war court ■ A classified motion in the case of a Saudi man accused of arranging the USS Cole bombing is so secret that the public can’t know its name. BY CAROL ROSENBERG [email protected]

PHOTOS BY CHARLES TRAINOR JR/MIAMI HERALD STAFF

ACHIEVEMENT IN SPOTLIGHT: Dillard High School’s class of 2013 salutatorian Oscar Spence speaks to fellow graduates last week — a class that had an overall graduation rate of more than 92 percent.

A force for success In Broward and elsewhere, many black male students struggle to perform as well as their peers. A new district task force hopes to change that.

BY MICHAEL VASQUEZ [email protected]

I

n the Broward school district’s quest to improve minority student achievement, Dillard High School’s graduation ceremony last week was more than just another annual event — it was a taste of what success feels like. Family members and friends packed Fort Lauderdale’s War Memorial Auditorium to cheer on the more than 300 graduates — most of them African-American. Dillard principal Casandra Robinson boasted that many graduates were leaving high school with job-focused industry training certifications, and the class of 2013’s overall graduation rate of more than 92 percent was one of the highest in school history. “We’re kicking butt and taking

names,” Robinson told students. In part by studying Dillard and other high-performing schools — such as Miramar High School, which graduates more than 90 percent of its black male students — Broward hopes to find answers to a long-standing problem that has perplexed South Florida and the nation: How to boost the success rates of young black boys? Broward is confronting the issue armed with its Black Male Success Task Force, created last fall. Across just about every Broward school system indicator, from third-grade FCAT scores to high school graduation rates, black male students lag significantly behind their classmates. Roughly 35 percent of black male

• TURN TO GRADUATES, 4A

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — When the war court reconvenes this week, pretrial hearings in the case of an alleged al-Qaida bomber will be tackling a government motion that’s so secret the public can’t know its name. It’s listed as the 92nd court filing in the deathpenalty case against a Saudi man, Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, who was waterboarded by CIA agents. And in place of its name, the Pentagon has stamped “classified” in red. It’s not the first classified motion in the case against the 48-year-old

former millionaire from Mecca accused of orchestrating al-Qaida’s October 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole warship off Yemen. Seventeen sailors were killed in the attack, and the prosecutor proposes to execute Nashiri, if he’s convicted. Also on the docket for discussion this week is a classified defense motion that asks the Army judge to order the government to reveal information “related to the arrest, detention and interrogation” of Nashiri. By the time he got to Guantánamo in 2006, according to declassified investigations, CIA agents had held him at secret

• TURN TO COURT, 2A

SURVEILLANCE

U.S. spy programs raise anger both home and abroad ■ Fallout continues after an NSA contract employee’s disclosure of U.S. programs to access millions of phone and Internet accounts. BY LARA JAKES Associated Press

< FOUNDATION FOR SUCCESS: Donvin Farquharson, center, in the highachieving class of 2013 at Dillard, hears graduation speakers at the War Memorial Auditorium in Fort Lauderdale on June 4.

NBA FINALS | GAME 3: HEAT AT SPURS, 9 P.M. TUESDAY, ABC

Global audience tunes into Heat vs. Spurs ■ The NBA Finals are being broadcast to a record 215 countries. International players on both teams fan the games’ popularity. BY ANDRE C. FERNANDEZ [email protected]

players combined on both rosters and a record number of people tuning in worldwide, this year’s NBA Finals have a distinct international feel. With the series picking up in San Antonio on Tuesday, Parker is one of nine international players on the Spurs roster. Add the Heat’s Canadian reserve center Joel Anthony and there are a record number of interna-

Tony Parker gave his Spurs fans, and fellow French, a reason to celebrate with his game-clinching shot in Game 1 Thursday • TURN TO HEAT, 2A night. The Heat gave its fans MiamiHerald.com/heat watching in more than 200 See photos, video and countries more thrills in get complete coverage of the Game 2 on Sunday. With 10 international NBA Finals


REPORTING FOR CHINA: International journalist Shuangfu Li covers Game 1 of the NBA Finals at AmericanAirlines Arena for SINA.com in China.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration faced fresh anger Monday at home and abroad over U.S. spy programs that track phone and Internet messages around the world in the hope of thwarting terrorist threats. But a senior intelligence official said there are no plans to end the secretive surveillance systems. The programs causing the global uproar were revealed by Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old employee of government contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Snowden, whose identity was revealed at his own request, has fled to Hong Kong in hopes of escaping criminal charges. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who heads the Senate Intelligence Committee and supports the surveil-

• TURN TO NSA, 2A

J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE/AP

HAS ORDERED INTERNAL REVIEW: National Intelligence Director James Clapper.

Developments ● Officials in Germany and the European Union issued complaints over two National Security Agency programs that target suspicious foreign messages. ● A senior U.S. intelligence official said there are no plans to scrap the surveillance programs. ● Most members of Congress likely will go along with heightened surveillance because they believe the programs are necessary. Story, 3A

Summer at The Breakers. It’s about time. ENDLESS SUMMER SAVINGS

DAILY COMPLIMENTARY BENEFITS INCLUDE: Continental Breakfast Buffet • Kids’ Meals & Day Camp • Unlimited Tennis • Unlimited Fitness Classes • Unlimited WiFi & Local Calls

Enjoy reduced fees for golf play, resort savings and an array of exciting activities every day and night, including HMF, Palm Beach’s newest social drinking and eating destination.

1-855-311-4681 • SummerAtTheBreakers.com

Once you stay, you’ll understand®

Room rates are per room, per night from $339 May 1-30, 2013; from $299 Jun. 1-Sept. 30, 2013; and from $349 Oct. 1-31, 2013. Based on Deluxe accommodations Mon.-Thurs. and subject to availability. Tax not included. Benefits are valid through October 31, 2013. Not available to groups. Complimentary Kids’ Camp does not apply to Night Camp. Other restrictions apply.

INDEX CLASSIFIED, 9-12D |

COMICS, 7E | CROSSWORD, 6E | DEATHS, 4B | EDITORIALS, 12A | LOTTERY, 2B | MOVIES, 5E | PEOPLE, 6A | TELEVISION, 5E

Customer Service: MiamiHerald.com/service or 1-800-843-4372

Page: Asection_f


Last user: cci

Edition: 1st



2A | TUESDAY, JUNE 11, 2013

FROM THE FRONT PAGE

H1

SURVEILLANCE

MiamiHerald.com | THE MIAMI HERALD GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE

U.S. spy programs stirring ire • NSA, FROM 1A lance, accused Snowden of committing an “act of treason” and said he should be prosecuted. Coolly but firmly, officials in Germany and the European Union issued complaints over two National Security Agency programs that target suspicious foreign messages — potentially including phone numbers, e-mail, images, video and other online communications transmitted through U.S. providers. The chief British diplomat felt it necessary to try to assure Parliament that the spy programs do not encroach on U.K. privacy laws. And in Washington, some members of Congress said they would take a new look at scaling back the government’s authority to broadly sweep up personal communications when such surveillance risks privacy protections. “There’s very little trust in the government, and that’s for good reason,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who sits on the House Intelligence Committee. “We’re our own worst enemy.” Independent Sen. Angus King of Maine, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he was considering how Congress could limit the amount of data spy agencies seize from telephone and Internet companies — including restricting the information to be released only on an asneeded basis. “It’s a little unsettling to have this massive data in the government’s possession,” he said. A senior U.S. intelligence official said there are no plans to scrap the programs that, despite the backlash, continue to receive widespread if cautious support within Congress. The official spoke on condition of

anonymity to discuss the sensitive security issue. The programs were revealed last week by The Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers. National Intelligence Director James Clapper has taken the unusual step of declassifying some of the previously top secret details to help the administration mount a public defense of the surveillance as a necessary step to protect Americans. One of the NSA programs gathers hundreds of millions of U.S. phone records to search for possible links to known terrorist targets abroad. The other allows the government to tap into nine U.S. Internet companies and gather all communications to detect suspicious behavior that begins overseas. Snowden is a former CIA employee who later worked as a contractor for the NSA on behalf of Booz Allen, where he gained access to the surveillance. Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said it was “absolutely shocking” that a 29-year-old with limited experience would have access to this material. The first explosive document he revealed was a top secret court order issued by the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that granted a three-month renewal for a massive collection of American phone records. That order was signed April 25. The Guardian’s first story on the court order was published June 5. In a statement issued Sunday, Booz Allen said Snowden had been an employee for fewer than three months, so it’s possible he was working as an NSA contractor when the order was issued. He also gave the Post and the Guardian a PowerPoint presentation on another se-

cret program that collects online usage by the nine Internet providers. The U.S. government says it uses that information only to track foreigners’ use overseas. Believing his role would soon be exposed, Snowden fled last month to Hong Kong, a Chinese territory that enjoys relative autonomy from Beijing. His exact whereabouts were unknown Monday. “All of the options, as he put it, are bad options,” Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, who first reported the phone-tracking program and interviewed Snowden extensively, told The Associated Press on Monday. He said Snowden decided to release details of the programs out of shock and anger over the sheer scope of the government’s privacy invasions. Although Hong Kong has an extradition treaty with the U.S., the document has some exceptions, including for crimes deemed political. Any negotiations about his possible handover will involve Beijing, but some analysts believe China is unlikely to want to jeopardize its relationship with Washington over someone it would consider of little political interest. Snowden also told The Guardian that he may seek asylum in Iceland, which has strong free-speech protections and a tradition of providing a haven for the outspoken and the outcast. The Justice Department is investigating whether his disclosures were a criminal offense — a matter that’s not always clear-cut under U.S. federal law. A second senior intelligence official said Snowden would have had to have signed a nondisclosure agreement to gain access to the top-secret data. That

suggests he could be prosecuted for violating that agreement. Penalties could range from a few years to life in prison. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe the process of accessing classified materials more frankly. If Snowden is forced to return to the United States to face charges, whistleblower advocates said Monday that they would raise money for his legal defense. Clapper has ordered an internal review to assess how much damage the disclosures created. Intelligence experts say terrorist suspects and others seeking to attack the U.S. all but certainly will find alternate ways to communicate instead of relying on systems that now are widely known to be under surveillance. On Tuesday, the European Parliament, through its 27-nation executive arm, will debate the spy programs and whether they have violated local privacy protections. E.U. officials in Brussels pledged to seek answers from U.S. diplomats at a trans-Atlantic ministerial meeting in Dublin that begins Thursday. Additionally, German government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters Monday that Chancellor Angela Merkel would question President Barack Obama about the NSA program when he’s in Berlin June 18. In London, British Foreign Secretary William Hague was forced to deny allegations that the U.K. government had used information provided by the Americans to circumvent British laws. “We want the British people to have confidence in the work of our intelligence agencies and in their adherence to the law and democratic values,” Hague told Parliament.

NBA FINALS | GAME 3: HEAT AT SPURS, 9 P.M. TUESDAY, ABC

NBA finals viewed in 215 countries • HEAT, FROM 1A tional players in the Finals. The series’ diverse representation coupled with the Heat’s spike in popularity since LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined Dwyane Wade in the summer of 2010 has prompted huge global interest. A melting pot of nationalities sets up shop inside AmericanAirlines Arena in a scene similar to the United Nations building. Pictures of the flags of the home nations of several media outlets were posted on the glass in front of several work stations overlooking the court. Crews tucked inside the many control trucks parked outside the arena coordinated the continuous coverage in languages such as English, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin and French just to name a few. The convergence of TV and digital and social media is helping the NBA broadcast its signature event to a record 215 countries and territories in 47 languages. “This is what the NBA and [commissioner] David [Stern] has been working for throughout his career,” said Steve Hellmuth, the NBA’s executive vice president for Operations and Technology. “Whenever a player comes to the league from a given country, his home fans obviously want to see him play on the big stage.” Along with Parker, the Spurs have Manu Ginobili (Argentina), Tim Duncan (U.S. Virgin Islands), Nando De Colo (France), Boris Diaw (France), Aron Baynes (Australia), Cory Joseph (Canada), Patty Mills (Australia) and Tiago Splitter (Brazil) on their roster. They represent the NBA’s huge growth in diversity and worldwide popularity that has continued to grow over the past two decades since the original Dream Team won gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Since then, the number of international players in the NBA has grown from 21 to 85. That season, the Finals

Page: Asection_2


AT GAME 1: Stephen Hellmuth, executive vice president for the NBA’s Operations and Technology, center, in the production trailer. were broadcast to 87 countries. According to Hellmuth, this year’s Finals are being covered by 16 announcer teams that are on-site plus another 31 broadcasting from remote locations. “All of our players were instantly recognized globally after what the Dream Team did in 1992,” said Hellmuth, who has worked with the NBA since 1990 and has worked with NBC Sports and Major League Baseball. “We had Dirk Nowitzki in the Finals a couple of years ago [with the Dallas Mavericks]. We had no broadcast deal at the time with Germany. It was all broadband. But the numbers we tracked after the series were huge.” The NBA also launched a new online feature called “NBA Finals Companion” that combines television and social media and is available through its League Pass and nba.com. It allows fans to play “NBA Challenge,” a real-time predictive gaming experience, view live tweets from international commentators, and post photos of themselves watching the games with #NBAFan to Instagram or Twitter for a chance to be featured on the NBA world feed television broadcast. More than 310 international media members were credentialed for this year’s Finals, representing 34 countries. Parker, De Colo and Diaw give France the most players


Last user: cci

it has ever had in the Finals. Three French networks, including beIN Sport, which will provide live commentary for the first time, are providing on-site coverage. Former NBA star Horace Grant was in Paris for Game 1 making TV appearances. French soccer stars Thierry Henry and Etienne Capoue are attending the Finals and appearing on their country’s broadcasts. China’s CCTV is providing a customized feed for all games with commentary and graphics in Mandarin, and has a new weekly twohour lifestyle show called NBA Primetime. SINA.com will stream every game live online and provide content with real-time fan interaction. The Heat played a couple of preseason games in China in October. “In China, the No. 1 team for a long time has been the [Los Angeles] Lakers, but the Heat is emerging as one of the top teams the past three years,” said Shuangfu Li, a reporter for SINA. “The Spurs have a group of diehard fans in China. It’s a big competition between the fans over there. We know we have over 300 million fans watching this series.” Europe, Asia and the Middle East all have networks providing coverage to countries in its regions, including Spain, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Turkey, India, Japan, Australia, Philippines and South Africa. Fans in Latin America and

Edition: 1st

the Caribbean are also watching live on ESPN and through digital coverage on enebea.com in Spanish and nba.com.br in Portuguese. “It’s an honor to represent Brazil in the Finals,” Splitter said. “It’s hard to make it in the NBA and even more to reach the Finals. I think a big part of Latin America is right there with us.” But even if fans around the world don’t have a player representing them, the Heat has continued to be a source for big ratings boosts. “It’s likely the team most watched in Spain the past three years since they’re always on TV,” said Antoni Daimiel, who is providing color commentary of the series for Spain’s Canal-Plus. “Before that, the Lakers and [Boston] Celtics have always been since it started growing in the 1980s. It grew even more with the arrival of Spanish players in the league like the Gasols.” Pau Gasol plays for the Lakers and brother Marc Gasol plays for the Memphis Grizzlies. Added David Carnicero, play-by-play announcer for Spain’s Canal-Plus: “LeBron is a world idol. But due to the Spanish influence in Miami there’s been a big fan following for years especially since many Spanish artists have performed in Miami and gained a following.” The growth is expected to continue even after these Finals as eight NBA teams are already scheduled to play exhibition games in six countries this October. The games will include the first preseason games held in Brazil and the Philippines, and in the cities of Bilbao, Spain, and Manchester, England. And there is talk of scheduling regular-season games abroad next season as well. “It’s grown a lot in Brazil and a lot of people are cheering for us,” Splitter said. “This is big stuff for Brazil. We have a game there next year, and [the popularity] is growing. It will only keep growing more.”



JANET HAMLIN/MCT

COULD FACE DEATH PENALTY: Abd al Rahim al Nashiri during his military commissions arraignment on Nov. 9, 2011 in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Guantánamo court has new layer of secrecy • COURT, FROM 1A overseas prisons for four years during which, according to declassified accounts, he was waterboarded and interrogated at the point of a revving power drill and racked pistol. But what makes the noname government motion so intriguing is that those who’ve read it can’t say what it’s about, and those who haven’t don’t have a clue. Not even the accused who, unless the judge rules for the defense, is not allowed to get an unclassified explanation of it — and cannot sit in on the court session when it’s argued in secret. The motion was so secret that Nashiri’s Indianapolis-based defense attorney said members of the defense team would not characterize it over the phone. “Literally, I had to fly to Washington, D.C. to read it,” said attorney Rick Kammen of Indianapolis, a career death-penalty defender whom the Pentagon pays to represent Nashiri. Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, the Pentagon’s war crimes prosecutor, counters that “there are important narrow occasions where certain interests can allow that to happen,” he says, “to protect national security interests.” Martin said his office doesn’t use secrecy to cover up embarrassing episodes. Rather, he has said the court is engaging in a balancing act between national security and the public’s right to know. This week, the public will get to hear lawyers debate fundamental legal issues — whether an accused has a right to confront his accuser, notably whether FBI agents can offer information taken from a now-dead man in Yemen a decade ago, and whether conspiracy can be a war crime. But the secrecy at the Pentagon court whose motto is “Fairness — Transparency — Justice” is also garnering attention. A First Amendment attorney for 14 news organization, including The Miami Herald, filed a motion with the judge May 15 opposing “any effort to close any portion of the future hearings in this historic prosecution.” In an interview, Yale law instructor Eugene Fidell compared having a motion with no name filed under seal and argued in closed session to playing the old parlor game Charades — “in the dark.” President George W. Bush created the special military tribunals in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, an original format that was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2006. U.S. military officers serve as judge, jury, defense and prosecution lawyers in the cases against foreign captives who were interrogated years ago without ben-

efit of a lawyer. Secret motions will do little to inspire confidence in a court that’s already controversial, said Fidell, an expert on military justice. Bush reformed them in collaboration with Congress around the time the CIA delivered Nashiri, alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and a dozen other socalled “high-value detainees” to Guantánamo for trials, in September 2006. Then-Sen. Barack Obama was critical of the system but kept it once he became president, and tweaked it again to give the accused greater protections. But certain aspects of the secrecy continue. Both Nashiri and five 9/11 defendants claim they were tortured in secret CIA custody, but the public cannot learn what they say happened to them, where or who did it. Details of the Bush era’s socalled Rendition, Detention and Interrogation program remain classified, although in recent hearings the defendants and their lawyers have been allowed to say the word “torture” without a censor hitting a white noise button. Meantime, the no-name motion remains a mystery. “I’m not sure what they’re up to,” says retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis, a former chief Guantánamo prosecutor who resigned to protest what he saw as political meddling in the process. One possibility, he said, is the government may be trying to wall of inquiry into “how Nashiri was apprehended, where the information came from” and what an undisclosed foreign intelligence agency “did with him before we got him” at Dubai airport in late 2002. Even though the names of some foreign countries where the CIA had prisons have leaked, those nations’ participation is still classified, ostensibly to protect relationships with countries that help the United States hunt down al-Qaida and other terror groups. But with no name on the motion to provide a clue, Davis is at best offering a possible explanation. And that’s something that Fidell says has the effect of “eroding public confidence” in Guantánamo justice. “We’re supposed to be talking about the rule of law. You can have an allstar team of justices — Cardozo, Brandeis, Holmes, John Marshall, Stevens, Brennan, take your pick — and if they’re working in a closet you can forget about it in terms of public confidence in the administration of justice.” “You could have a forum that convicted only the guilty, acquitted only the innocent and rendered reasonable sentences,” he said. “And if it was done in the dark it wouldn’t foster public confidence.”

HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL COVERAGE

ANTITRUST TRIAL SET IN AIRLINE MERGER MONEY, 1C

SPORTS, 1D, 6-8D

S AT U R D AY , A U G U S T 3 1 , 2 0 1 3 | $ 1 . 0 0 | F I N A L E D I T I O N | M I A M I H E R A L D .C O M

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI 34, FLORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY 6

H3

SYRIA

A LEGEND HONORED

U.S. makes its case for Syria action ■ Although no timing was given, comments by the secretary of state and president signaled that a missile strike against Syria was imminent. BY LESLEY CLARK, ANITA KUMAR AND HANNAH ALLAM McClatchy Washington Bureau


Former Miami Hurricanes and Florida Atlantic coach Howard Schnellenberger raises the 1983 NCAA National Championship Trophy during the halftime ceremony of the Hurricanes’ 34-6 season-opening victory against the Owls on Friday night at Sun Life Stadium. Story, 1D

EDUCATION

Anatomy of a Florida college rip-off ■ An insider says ATI, with several South Florida campuses and outposts in five other states, was guilty of a litany of abuses. BY DAN CHRISTENSEN BrowardBulldog.org

ATI Career Training Center looked like dozens of other private career colleges that dot South Florida’s educational landscape. It of-

fered hope of a new career, a path into prosperity, an escape from poverty. According to a whistleblower suit filed by Dulce M. Ramirez-Damon, a former assistant director of education at the Fort Lauderdale campus, the school was an elaborate fraud. Settlement of the lawsuit was announced last week. As a result of the litigation: ● ATI has agreed to pay

$3.7 million, while acknowledging no wrongdoing. ● The company is being liquidated under the auspices of a crisis management firm. The suit alleged ATI recruited its students from homeless shelters and strip clubs. It allowed non-English speakers to fill slots in English-only classes, where they comprehended nothing. It doctored transcripts,

fudged grades, ignored nonattendance and set rigid recruitment quotas, all with one goal — so students, some of whom never set foot on campus after the first week, could qualify for federal loans and grants that were paid directly to ATI. The students were saddled with the debt. “It was a real bad deal for

• TURN TO ATI, 15A

‘INDUSTRIALES’ REUNION

DITCHED BY FIU, GAME WILL GO ON ■ An exhibition game reuniting former Industriales players from Cuba and the United States will go ahead in Fort Lauderdale thanks to a last-minute booking.

Even before the first pitch, the 50th anniversary “reunion” game of Cuba’s famed Industriales baseball team has been dominated by community infighting, finger-pointing, and mutual suspicion — all over an event that organizers say was supposed to promote unity among the island’s people. Some exile groups view the Havana baseball team as a propaganda tool for the Castro dictatorship. When Florida International University last PEDRO PORTAL/EL NUEVO HERALD month abruptly pulled out as a host site for the doubleheader game, event REUNITED: Players of the famous Cuban baseball team Industriales organizers complained the university visit the Ermita de la Caridad Catholic Church. From left, Rene was giving in to community pressure. Arocha (living in Miami), Lazaro Vargas, Armando Capiro, Armando Ferreiro, Pedro Medina, Tony Gonzalez, Juan Padilla, • TURN TO BASEBALL, 2A Javier Mendez, Lazaro Valle and Rey Vicente Anglada with his son.

Connect with us Online: MiamiHerald.com/service Phone: 1-800-843-4372 Follow us on Facebook and Twitter

Weather, 7B

Page: Asection_f

91 | 76 Sun & storms, warm & humid

Pub. date: Saturday, August 31

Last user: cci

Edition: 1st

Section, zone: Asection, HeraldDade

out from a U.S. strike in an already volatile region. Kerry said that history would judge inaction on Syria harshly and insisted the U.S. wasn’t alone in its call for an international response, noting words of support from the Arab League, France and Australia. “This matters to us, and

• TURN TO STRIKE, 2A ● War-weary public leery of another entanglement, 3A ● More Syria coverage, 12A

Who knows more: War court lawyers or moviemakers? ■ Attorneys say the makers of ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ have more information about their client’s detention than they do. [email protected]

[email protected]

PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/AP

WEIGHING OPTIONS: ‘We’re not considering any boots-on-theground approach,’ President Barack Obama said Friday.

GUANTANAMO

BY CAROL ROSENBERG

BY MICHAEL VASQUEZ

Today’s Deal: Siga la Vaca, all-you-can-eat Argentinian meal for 2 — only $45

WASHINGTON — Pledging a stand against the “indiscriminate, inconceivable horror of chemical weapons,” Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday laid out the Obama administration’s case for a military intervention in Syria based on intelligence that says the Syrian regime gassed civilians multiple times in defiance of international norms. Kerry’s remarks, along with statements from President Barack Obama later in the day, left little doubt that a U.S. missile strike against Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime was imminent, even without American popular support, backup from close ally Britain or the approval of the United Nations. The administration’s isolation in calling for speedy punitive action in Syria reflects the legacy of faulty intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq War. Nations are reluctant to sign up for another U.S.-led intervention when questions remain about details of the alleged chemical attack, as well as about potential fall-

Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal prepare the first 20 minutes of the film. In it, interrogators waterboard, strip naked and string up on a rope a man named “Ammar” who is described as the nephew of the 9/11 mastermind who helped finance the Sept. 11 hijackers. Prosecutors oppose the effort as irrelevant to the defense of Baluchi — nephew of alleged 9/11 architect Khalid Sheik Mohammed — who is accused of helping finance the hijackers in a case that seeks his execution. At issue in the latest transparency challenge at the war court is what CIA agents told Bigelow and Boal as they were making the 2012 docudrama on the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Emails and documents

Defense lawyers at the Guantánamo war court are turning the adage that art imitates life on its head with a legal motion that argues the makers of Zero Dark Thirty know more about what the CIA did to an accused Sept. 11 conspiraBALUCHI tor than the defendant’s lawyers do. In a 418-page legal filing, lawyers for Ammar al Baluchi seek government documents on how CIA interrogators and other U.S. officials helped director • TURN TO BALUCHI, 15A Inside today’s Herald Classified ............1F Comics ..............5E Deaths ..............4B Lottery ..............2B

Last change at: 23:34:26 August 30

Movies ...............7E People ..............6A Puzzles ..............6E Television ..........7E

110th year, No. 351 ©2013

FROM THE FRONT PAGE

MIAMI HERALD | MiamiHerald.com EDUCATION

Suit: College was an elaborate fraud • ATI , FROM 1A everybody, except for the people at the top making money,” said Miami attorney John Hickey, who represented Ramirez-Damon in the lawsuit, along with associate Bjorg Eikeland. “It was a bad deal for the students because they didn’t get a useful education. It was a bad deal for the U.S. government and the American taxpayer, who really got ripped off.” Ramirez-Damon’s False Claims Act complaint was filed in secret in July 2011 — the secrecy being standard until the government had decided whether to take up the cause, which it did this past Aug. 7 for the purpose of achieving a settlement. ‘FORGED’ RECORDS The suit alleged that ATI had engaged in a “systematic and nationwide fraudulent practice of forging documents and records to create an appearance of student eligibility in order to receive federal funds.” A similar whistleblower action was filed in federal court in northern Texas in 2009. Both suits have now been made public. A Department of Justice news release said ATI’s payment would resolve allegations it “falsely certified compliance with federal student aid programs’ eligibility requirements and submitted claims for ineligible students.” ATI also allegedly misrepresented its job placement statistics to authorities in Texas in order to maintain its licensing and accreditation, the release said. Federal prosecutors in Miami, Washington, and Texas investigated, along

with the Department of Education’s Inspector General. “Federal financial aid is there to help students attain their dreams and goals, and misuse of these funds to increase corporate profits is unacceptable,” said Miami U.S. Attorney Wifredo Ferrer in a news release. “We are committed to ensuring that federal student aid is used for the benefit of students.” ATI has changed hands a couple of times in recent years, with the current owner being Texas-based Ancora Holdings. But according to interim CEO Michael Gries, BENJAMIN “all of these allegations” engulfing ATI occurred under the leadership of former ATI Chief Executive and Chairman Arthur E. Benjamin, a resident of Delray Beach. Benjamin, who now runs Salt Lake City-based Stone Mountain Investments, did not return a phone message left with his office. Benjamin worked at ATI from 2005 to 2011. While there, he contributed tens of thousands of dollars to a bipartisan array of congressional candidates, according to federal election records. Florida recipients of Benjamin’s largess include: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Weston; Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Miramar; ex-Reps. E. Clay Shaw, R-Fort Lauderdale and Ron Klein, D-Boca Raton; and Charlie Crist, the ex-Republican and exgovernor and presumed frontrunner for the Democratic nomination to chal-

lenge Republican Gov. Rick Scott. The Florida whistleblower lawsuit alleged that within a month of Ramirez-Damon’s hiring in October 2009, it became apparent to her that ATI was engaged in active Pell Grant fraud. She said she notified her superiors, but that company management chose “to look the other way.” Ramirez-Damon claimed she was abruptly demoted in April 2011 and transferred off the Fort Lauderdale campus at 2890 NW 62nd St. to a job as an instructor in Doral. The reason: “to keep her silent” and deny her access to school records, the lawsuit said. She is no longer employed by ATI. Pell Grants provide government aid to students from low-income families. At ATI, students could take courses to train them for jobs in automotive, healthcare, business, information technology and other fields. According to the suit, ATI falsified documents to enroll “as many students as possible” in programs with tuitions ranging from $13,741 to $46,744 per program. One former ATI employee is quoted as saying “the ATI culture … was to recruit anyone with a pulse.” The numbers could add up quickly. “With a student mass of over 750 [in Fort Lauderdale] alone, and 18,000 countrywide, federal subsidy of tuition is a very lucrative scam for ATI,” the suit said. To find students, the suit said, ATI admission representatives targeted “the ‘down and out’ at homeless shelters, strip clubs and poor neighborhoods.” The

“bait” to entice them to sign up was the promise of financial aid and low-interest loans. ATI distributed flyers promising lucrative salaries and guarantees of job placement. ATI would also “re-circulate” poorly achieving students who faced dismissal, letting them know that they could transfer into another career training program. “This way the old grades no longer count and the student is again eligible to receive financial aid,” the Florida suit said. Some students who failed would fail again because they did not have the academic ability or background to take the courses they were in, according to the lawsuit. PROFIT FROM FAILURE “As a result, the students incurred more debt without graduating. ATI, on the other hand, has made more money,” the suit said. The Justice Department’s news release noted that $2 million of ATI’s settlement payout would be used to refund student loans involving separate litigation filed in Texas “and other related arbitrations.” Ramirez-Damon, the Florida whistleblower, is entitled to a cut of the rest. The Justice Department release did not say how much taxpayers lost on government loans to ATI students. Miami Herald staff writer Casey Frank contributed to this report. Broward Bulldog is a notfor-profit online only newspaper created to provide local reporting in the public interest. www.browardbulldog.org 954-603-1351

GUANTANAMO

Filing: Hollywood knows more than lawyers • BALUCHI, FROM 1A surfaced by Judicial Watch and Gawker in Freedom of Information filings show an agency and Pentagon eager to participate in the effort — even providing the filmmakers four CIA officers to brief them in the summer of 2011. “Nothing to comment,” screenwriter Boal said in a short email to the Miami Herald on Friday. “But good luck with the piece.” Baluchi’s attorneys Jay Connell and Air Force Lt. Col. Sterling Thomas, both on the case because they have top-secret security clearances, want the war court judge to order the government to provide them with uncensored correspondence between the filmmakers and U.S. officials, including interrogators’ names. They want to read an unredacted version of an internal CIA memo that talks about “an interrogation of a character who is modeled after Ammar al Baluchi” — in which the agency sought changes. “The United States has provided more information to the filmmakers of Zero Dark Thirty about Mr. al Baluchi’s treatment in CIA custody than it has to his defense counsel,” they argue. Although those lawyers months ago signed an agreement to safeguard national security secrets, “the prosecution has provided no information about Mr. al Baluchi’s rendition, detention and interrogation.” The unusual detour through a Hollywood production is just the latest effort by attorneys to shine a light on what happened to the alleged 9/11 conspirators before they got to Guantánamo in 2006. The CIA has acknowledged that it waterboarded Mohammed 183 times, among other interrogation tactics portrayed in the movie. But nothing has ever surfaced on what was done to his nephew, who sits four rows behind him at the war court as a co-defendant in the case alleging five men conspired to direct, train and fund the hijackers who killed nearly 3,000 people

Page: Asection_12

JONATHAN OLLEY

DOCUDRAMA: Seen through night vision goggles, Navy SEALs prepare to breach a locked door in Osama bin Laden’s compound in ‘Zero Dark Thirty.’ on Sept. 11, 2001. Prosecutors have consistently argued that the CIA treatment is not relevant at the trial. The war court forbids from trial the use of information gained through tortured interrogations. Defense lawyers argue they need to know what the CIA did to their clients as they carve out a defense for a capital murder trial like no other. First, despite prosecution pledges not to bring to court any information

Pub. date: Saturday, August 31

gained through torture, the defense lawyers don’t trust them. They want to be able to analyze evidence supposedly produced by socalled FBI clean teams years after the brutal interrogations portrayed in the Hollywood movie. Plus, they argue that mistreatment is a mitigating factor that should ultimately spare their clients the death penalty. And that starts with transparency, if not for the public then for the lawyers. The defense lawyers’ Ju-

ly 31 Zero Dark Thirty filing was released Aug. 27 by the Pentagon with about 100 pages blacked out. The prosecutors’ objections, filed Aug. 23, were still under seal Friday while intelligence agents scrubbed it of information the public is not allowed to see. Attorneys for Baluchi, 36, also attached a DVD of the first 25 minutes of the film to the court filing. Connell said he wants to screen it inside the maximum-security court for the judge, Army Col. James L. Pohl, when he gets to argue in court for the communications between the government and filmmakers. In addition to being waterboarded, the Ammar character in the movie is also forced to wear a dog collar and is stuffed in a coffin-like box. Declassified and leaked abuse investigations have shown that U.S. agents used those so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” to break the will of CIA prisoners after the 9/11 attacks. But none have ever been specifically tied to Baluchi.

490 Biltmore Way Coral Gables (305) 445-1421

Village of Merrick Park 3rd Floor (305) 461-0330

Warehouse Showroom 3750 NW 46 St (305) 463-0123

Last user: cci

Edition: 1st



H1

SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 2013 | 15A

THE MIAMI HERALD | MiamiHerald.com

H1

TUESDAY, JANUARY 29, 2013 | 3A

THE NATION GUANTÁNAMO WAR COURT

Strange censorship episode enrages judge ■ An unseen monitor censors the public’s view of war court, a disclosure that angered the judge in the death-penalty case of accused 9/11 planners. BY CAROL ROSENBERG

[email protected]

GUANTANAMO NAVY BASE, Cuba — Someone else besides the judge and security officer sitting inside the maximum-security court here can impose censorship on what the public can see and hear at the Sept. 11 trial, it was disclosed Monday. The role of an outside censor became clear when the audio turned to white noise during a discussion of a motion about the CIA’s black sites. Confusion ensued. A military escort advised report-

ers that the episode was a glitch, a technical error. A few minutes later, the public was once again allowed to listen into the proceedings and Army Col. James Pohl, the judge, made clear that neither he nor his security officer was responsible for the censorship episode. “If some external body is turning things off, if someone is turning the commission off based on their own views of what things ought to be, with no reason or no explanation,” the judge announced, “then we’re going to have a little meeting about who turns that light

• WASHINGTON, D.C.

Congress passes $50.5B Superstorm Sandy bill Three months after Superstorm Sandy ravaged coastal areas in much of the Northeast, Congress on Monday sent a $50.5 billion emergency relief measure for storm victims to President Barack Obama for his signature. “I commend Congress for giving families and businesses the help they deserve, and I will sign this bill into law as soon as it hits my desk,” Obama said in a statement late Monday. Despite opposition from conservatives concerned about adding to the nation’s debt, the Senate cleared the long-delayed bill, 62-36, after House Republicans had stripped it this month of spending unrelated to disasters. All 36 votes against the bill were from Republicans.

• CALIFORNIA ARSONIST SENTENCED TO DEATH SAN BERNARDINO — An arsonist was given the death penalty for killing five men who died of heart attacks during a wildfire nearly a decade ago that ripped through the hills east of Los Angeles. Rickie Lee Fowler, 31, was convicted in August of five counts of first-degree murder and two counts of arson. A jury later recommended the death sentence. Prosecutors said Fowler lit the fire in October 2003 out of rage after he was thrown out of a house where his family was staying. Defense attorney Don Jordan said before sentencing that there was doubt about whether Fowler was responsible for the blaze, and his client didn’t know where or when it started. “For all these reasons, please don’t impose the death penalty on this poor creature before you,” Jordan told the judge. Some legal experts previously said the jury’s death recommendation for a crime tangential to the arson appeared to be unprecedented. Fowler had also been convicted of sodomizing an inmate and sentenced to three terms of 25 years to life while in prison awaiting trial in the arson case. ‘STUNT’ DRIVERS CLOSE FREEWAY OAKLAND — The California Highway Patrol was trying to locate a group of drivers who briefly shut down part of a San Francisco Bay area freeway while they performed stunts. Sgt. Rob Barrera said the brazen sideshow stopped traffic on Interstate 880 near the Oakland Coliseum on Saturday afternoon. Video clips show at least a half-dozen cars peeling out from the shoulder and doing doughnuts in the road while other vehicles stack up.

• WASHINGTON STATE MISSILE LAUNCHER TAKEN TO GUN BUYBACK SEATTLE — Seattle police worked with Army officials Monday to track down the history of a nonfunctional Stinger missile launcher that showed up at a weapons buyback program and determine whether it was legal or possibly stolen from the military. Police witnessed the private exchange of the military launch tube near the gun buyback event, where gun buyers tempted those standing in long lines to turn in their weapons for cash. “It was absolutely crazy what we saw out there,” Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn said at a news conference in which officials said they had collected 716 weapons, including four confirmed as stolen. Officers saw guns changing private hands without knowing whether the person buying the gun had the legal right to buy it, McGinn said.

• HEALTH DOCTORS: WORKLOADS ENDANGER PATIENTS NEW YORK — Almost half of hospital doctors said they routinely see more patients than they can safely manage, leading in some cases to unneeded tests, medication errors and deaths, according to a survey by researchers at Johns Hopkins University. Seven percent of 506 hospital-based physicians surveyed said their heavy workloads likely led to a patient complication, and 5 percent reported it probably caused a death over the past year. JAMA Internal Medicine published the findings.

• VIRGINIA ‘LOVE SHACK’ BILL ADVANCES RICHMOND — A state Senate panel unanimously advanced a bill to repeal an old law that makes it illegal for unmarried couples to live together in Virginia. It is a misdemeanor in the state, under a law dating to the late 19th century, for “any persons, not married to each other, [to] lewdly and lasciviously associate and cohabit together.” It is likely that no one has been prosecuted under the law for decades, but state officials used it in the early 1990s to threaten revocation of a day-care provider’s state license, a senator said. Sen. Adam Ebbin said only three other states still have cohabitation laws on the books: Mississippi, Michigan and Florida. MIAMI HERALD WIRE SERVICES The Miami Herald is published daily by The Miami Herald Media Company (USPS #344-200), 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132-0372, a subsidiary of The McClatchy Company. Periodicals Postage Paid at Miami, Fla. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132-1693.

Pub. date: Tuesday, January 29

nics with camouflage, an attire option they won from the judge to appear at trial as self-styled soldiers. The strange censorship episode occurred as attorney David Nevin, defending Mohammed, was advising the judge that defense lawyers had wanted to argue a motion in court to preserve whatever remained of the CIA’s secret overseas prison network. Prosecutors had filed a classified response to the request, and the judge asked the two sides if they would let their motions speak for themselves. Nevin was explaining why not. Defense lawyers argue the alleged 9/11 conspirators were tortured in the socalled “black sites,” and that

the U.S. government has lost its moral authority to seek their execution. The CIA set up the sites during the Bush administration, reportedly in Poland, Romania, Thailand and elsewhere. President Barack Obama ordered them closed. The lawyers want the judge to order the government to preserve what’s left of them, six years after Mohammed and his co-defendants were moved to Guantánamo for trial. This is a familiar role for Pohl, who was the judge in the 2004 trials of U.S. soldiers for detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib and declared the prison in Iraq a crime scene, forbidding its demolition. Unclear so far in these

hearings is whether the judge knows where the black-site prisons were and whether any of them remain. Although he has a special security clearance to hear the 9/11 case, the CIA has not yet released classified information to the court because the defense and prosecution are still haggling over a protective order. But to court observer Phyllis Rodriguez, the judge appeared “furious” and “livid” when he realized that that outsiders had their finger on the censorship switch of his courtroom. “It’s a ‘whoa moment’ for the court,” said Human Rights Watch observer Laura Pitter.

U.S. MILITARY

NATION BRIEFS

Page: Nation

on and off.” His comments appeared to be aimed at the Pentagon prosecution team. Attorney Joanna Baltes, representing the Justice Department on secrecy matters in the case, advised the judge that she could explain what other forces have a hand in censoring the court proceedings. But not in open session. The alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his four accused conspirators were sitting in court, listening to everything — from the part that the public was forbidden to hear to the judge’s demand for an explanation. Three of the defendants adorned their traditional white tu-

Last user: johnparkhurst

Soldier has double-arm transplant ■ A soldier who lost all four of his limbs in the Iraq War tweeted that his newly transplanted arms ‘already move a little.’ BY MARILYNN MARCHIONE

Associated Press

On Facebook, he describes himself as a “wounded warrior … very wounded.” Brendan Marrocco was the first soldier to survive losing all four limbs in the Iraq War, and doctors revealed Monday that he has received a double-arm transplant. Those new arms “already move a little,” he tweeted a month after the operation. Marrocco, a 26-year-old New Yorker, was injured by a roadside bomb in 2009. He had the transplant Dec. 18 at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, his father said Monday. Alex Marrocco said his son does not want to talk with reporters until a news conference Tuesday at the hospital, but the younger Marrocco has repeatedly mentioned the transplant on Twitter and posted photos. “Ohh yeah today has been one month since my surgery and they already move a little,” Brendan Marrocco tweeted Jan. 18. Responding to a tweet from NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski, he wrote: “dude I can’t tell you how exciting

SETH WENIG/AP FILE

SURVIVOR: Sgt. Brendan Marrocco, wearing a prosthetic arm, is pictured at the 9/11 Memorial in New York in July. He recently had a double-arm transplant. this is for me. I feel like I finally get to start over.” The infantryman also received bone marrow from the same dead donor who supplied his new arms. That novel approach is aimed at helping his body accept the new limbs with minimal medication to prevent rejection. The military sponsors operations like these to help wounded troops. About 300 have lost arms or hands in Iraq or Afghanistan. Unlike a lifesaving heart

or liver transplant, limb transplants are aimed at improving quality of life, not extending it. “He was the first quad amputee to survive,” and there have been four others since then, Alex Marrocco said. The Marroccos want to thank the donor’s family for “making a selfless decision … making a difference in Brendan’s life,” the father said. Brendan Marrocco has been in public many times.

During a July 4 visit last year to the Sept. 11 Memorial with other disabled soldiers, he said he had no regrets about his military service. “I wouldn’t change it in any way. … I feel great. I’m still the same person,” he said. The 13-hour operation was led by Dr. W.P. Andrew Lee, plastic surgery chief at Johns Hopkins. It was the seventh doublehand or double-arm transplant done in the United States.

BOY SCOUTS

TEXAS

Boy Scouts may end their no-gays policy

Woman’s execution to be 1st in U.S. since ’10

■ The Boy Scouts have been under extreme pressure for years to change their policy against gay scouts and leaders.

■ Texas killer Kimberly McCarthy will be the first woman put to death since 2010. In that same time, 1,309 men have been executed in the U.S.

BY DAVID CRARY Associated Press

NEW YORK — The Boy Scouts of America may soon give sponsors of troops the authority to decide whether to accept gays as scouts and leaders — a potentially dramatic retreat from an exclusionary nationwide policy that has provoked relentless protests. Under the change now being discussed, the different religious and civic groups that sponsor Scout units would be able to decide for themselves how to address the issue — either maintaining an exclusion of gays, as is now required of all units, or opening up their membership. Gay-rights activists were elated at the prospect of change, sensing another milestone to go along with recent advances for samesex marriage and the end of the ban on gays serving openly in the military. However, Southern Baptist leaders — who consider homosexuality a sin — were furious about the possible change and said its approval might encourage Southern Baptist churches to support other boys’ organizations instead of the BSA.

Edition: 1st

Monday’s announcement of the possible change comes after years of protests over the no-gays policy — including petition campaigns that have prompted some corporations to suspend donations to the Boy Scouts. Under the proposed change, said BSA spokesman Deron Smith, “the Boy Scouts would not, under any circumstances, dictate a position to units, members, or parents.” Smith said the change could be announced as early as next week, after BSA’s national board concludes a regularly scheduled meeting on Feb. 6. The meeting will be closed to the public. The BSA, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2010, has long excluded both gays and atheists. Smith said a change in the policy toward atheists was not being considered.Protests over the no-gays policy gained momentum in 2000, when the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the BSA’s right to exclude gays. Scout units lost sponsorships by public schools and other entities that adhered to nondiscrimination policies, and several local Scout councils made public their displeasure with the policy.


BY MICHAEL GRACZYK

Associated Press

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A Texas woman convicted of the gruesome slaying and robbery of her neighbor, a retired 71-year-old college psychology professor, is set to be the first woman put to death in the United States since 2010. A Dallas County jury already found former nursing home therapist Kimberly McCarthy guilty of the 1997 killing when evidence at the punishment phase of her trial tied her to two similar murders a decade earlier. “Once the jury heard about those other two, we were certainly in a deep hole,” recalled McCarthy’s lead trial attorney, Doug Parks. Jurors decided McCarthy should die. Her execution, set for Tuesday evening, would be the first of a woman since a Virginia inmate, Teresa Lewis, became the 12th woman put to death since the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976 allowed capital punishment to resume. In that same time, 1,309 men have been executed. Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics compiled from 1980 through 2008 show women make up about 10

Last change at: 19:41:27 January 28

percent of homicide offenders nationwide. According to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, 3,146 people were on the nation’s Death Rows as of last Oct. 1, and only 63 — 2 percent — were women. The 51-year-old McCarthy also would be the first woman executed in Texas in more than eight years and the fourth overall in the state, which executes the most people in the nation — 492 prisoners since capital punishment resumed 30 years ago. McCarthy, who is black, was condemned for the July 1997 killing of neighbor Dorothy Booth in Lancaster, about 15 miles south of Dallas. All but one of McCarthy’s jurors were white. McCarthy exhausted her court appeals, as the U.S. Supreme Court three weeks ago declined to review her case and the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles last week turned down a clemency petition. On Friday, her attorneys asked Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins to delay the lethal injection, citing his interest in Texas adopting a law to allow Death Row prisoners to base appeals on race. Watkins has not responded.


H1

TUESDAY, AUGUST 20, 2013 | 3A

THE NATION WAR COURT | 9/11 TRIAL

NATION BRIEFS • WASHINGTON, D.C.

Obamas get Sunny to be canine playmate for Bo Watch out, Bo — there’s a new dog in town. The White House said Monday that the Obamas have added a second dog to the first family. Her name is Sunny, and she’s a Portuguese water dog — the same breed as the Obamas’ other dog, Bo. The White House says that breed works well for the Obamas because of family allergies. Sunny was born a year ago in June in Michigan and arrived at the White House on Monday.

• CALIFORNIA KIDNAPPER WILLS CASH TO GIRL’S FAMILY SAN DIEGO — A spokesman for the family of a California man who abducted a 16-year-old girl and killed her mother and young brother says a member of the family is the beneficiary of his life insurance. Andrew Spanswick said James Lee DiMaggio left $112,000 to Hannah Anderson’s paternal grandmother. Spanswick says he doesn’t know why but believes it is for Hannah’s benefit. Spanswick says DiMaggio, who was killed in a shootout with FBI agents, named Bernice Anderson as his beneficiary in 2011 instead of his sister. DID EMBATTLED MAYOR, ACCUSER MEET? SAN DIEGO — San Diego’s embattled mayor has been spotted — not returning to work at City Hall but heading into an office building followed by an attorney representing a woman who filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against him. KFMB-TV posted a video showing Bob Filner walking into the building; about 45 minutes later, attorney Gloria Allred was seen entering. The station reported that her client, Irene McCormack Jackson, also entered building. McCormack is the mayor’s former communication’s director and the first of more than a dozen women to go public with harassment allegations. SENIOR DRIVER PLOWS INTO CENTER; 5 HURT FOUNTAIN VALLEY — A 76-year-old man drove his car into a California tutoring center, injuring himself and five other people, including two who were trapped underneath the vehicle, police said.

• U.S. WORKFORCE FAST-FOOD WORKERS CALL STRIKE AUG. 29 Emboldened by an outpouring of support on social media, low-wage fast-food and retail workers from eight cities who have staged walkouts this year are calling for a national day of strikes Aug. 29. The workers — who are backed by local community groups and national unions and have held one-day walkouts in cities such as New York, St. Louis and Detroit — say they have received pledges of support from workers in dozens of cities across the country. The workers are calling for a wage of $15 an hour and the right to form a union. Organizers of the walkout say cashiers, cooks and crew members at fastfood restaurants are paid a median wage of $8.94 an hour. Since some 200 workers walked off their jobs at fast-food restaurants in New York City this past November, the strikes have moved across the country, drawing attention to a fast-growing segment of the workforce that until recently had shown no inclination to organize for purposes of collective bargaining. The planned August walkout — timed for the immediate aftermath of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and the lead-up to Labor Day — is expected to touch 35 or more cities and involve thousands of workers, organizers said. The walkouts have not led to widespread changes, though some workers say they have gotten small pay increases and better hours in the wake of previous strikes.

• PENNSYLVANIA WOMAN GETS SECOND CHANCE TO KEEP HOME HARRISBURG — A western Pennsylvania woman whose $280,000 home was sold at auction over $6.30 in unpaid interest won a court decision allowing her a fresh opportunity to argue she should not lose her home. Commonwealth Court ruled it was a mistake for a Beaver County judge to rule against Eileen Battisti without first holding an evidentiary hearing. Battisti purchased the home outside Pittsburgh in 1999 with her husband, who managed their finances. She paid off the property after he died in 2004 with proceeds from his life insurance policy. Because of a series of personal setbacks, she fell behind on various tax bills, but believed she had paid them all off, even though some were late. The $6.30 penalty was added to her tax bill in 2009, which grew with interests and costs to $235 by late 2011, when the Aliquippa home was sold at auction for $116,000. Battisti’s lawyer says she still lives in the home.

• NEW MEXICO SOURCE OF SALMONELLA OUTBREAK FOUND SANTA FE — A national outbreak of salmonella has been linked to an eastern New Mexico hatchery that sells live baby chickens, ducks and other poultry by mail and supplies them to feed stores, state health officials said. The state Department of Health said a strain of salmonella that’s infected more than 300 people in 37 states was found in a duck pen at Privett Hatchery in Portales. No deaths have been reported, but 51 people have been hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Children ages 10 and younger account for nearly three-fifths of those who’ve become ill. MIAMI HERALD WIRE SERVICES

CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS ● A quote from Miami lobbyist Eston “Dusty’’ Melton in a story about lobbyist Jorge Forte on the front page Monday should have read, “If there’s a farm league in the lobbying industry, I guess he was playing Triple-A ball.”


Page: Nation

Pub. date: Tuesday, August 20

Last user: cci

Hearing is so secret that its subject remains secret ■ Citing a national security threat, the judge barred any discussion of a secret government request for a secret ruling by the judge. BY CAROL ROSENBERG [email protected]

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba — An Army judge ordered accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his co-defendants cleared from the war court Monday and held the first secret hearing of the 9/11 capital tribunal on a government motion that’s so secret the public cannot know its name. Army Col. James L. Pohl, the judge, ruled an open hearing would present a risk to national security, without specifying how. He rejected a defense request to include the men who, if convicted, could be executed for conspiring in the worst attack on U.S. soil, including 2,976 counts of murder. They are Mohammed, 48; two alleged lieutenants in the plot, Walid bin Attash, 35, and Ramzi bin al Shibh, 41, as well as Mohammed’s nephew Ammar al Baluchi, 35, and Mustafa al Hawsawi, 45, accused of helping move money and arrange travel for some of the 19 men who hijacked the aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001. At issue was a motion labeled AE52 and listed as “government consolidated notice regarding ex parte, in camera filing and motion for finding” — in short a secret

request from the government for a secret ruling from the judge. The hearing lasted 36 minutes, said Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a Pentagon spokesman who was unable to provide any specifics besides the motion’s name. James Connell III, Baluchi’s Pentagon-paid defense lawyer, argued without specifics that the contents of the motion weren’t classified. Even if the public were excluded, he said, the accused should be allowed to hear the arguments because they’re held incommunicado, under lockdown at a secret prison on this base with no means to tell anyone but their lawyers what was said. Prosecutor Joanna Baltes said the U.S. government chose to classify the motion and did not have to justify to the defense lawyers why they had done so. The judge agreed and rejected a request by Connell that at least a portion of the hearing be held in open court. Pohl similarly closed the court for a secret no-name motion in Guantánamo’s other death-penalty trial, in which Saudi captive Abd al Rahim al Nashiri is accused of orchestrating al-Qaida’s October 2000 suicide bombing of the USS Cole warship of Yemen. Seventeen U.S. service members

died. The prosecution eventually created a partially redacted transcript. “Despite the government’s propaganda, this process is not transparent,” said Army Maj. Jason Wright, Mohammed’s military defense attorney. “It’s seeking to execute men with secret evidence away from the public view.” As a principle, he said, the man who bragged to a military board in 2007 that he was responsible for the Sept. 11 terror attacks “from A to Z” is of the position that he “believes that he should be present when the government is seeking to use any and all evidence it can to execute him.” Monday marked the opening of the fifth round of pretrial hearings ahead of a trial the Pentagon prosecutor proposes to start Sept. 22, 2014. In other developments Monday: ● Detainee health issues dominated. Hawsawi who wore a neck brace to court, said through his lawyer that he was suffering headaches from an unspecified condition and got permission to skip the afternoon session. Bin Attash, a one-legged defendant accused of training some of the hijackers, was suffering from diarrhea as a result of treatment for an infection called Helicobacter pylori. An Army doctor who specializes in family medicine testified anonymously

that he was trying to locate a gastroenterologist to treat him. ● Two agents defended their decision to interrogate Hawsawi, a native Saudi whose first language is Arabic, without benefit of an Arabic-language translator. They said he was advised his participation was voluntary before the first round of interrogations Jan. 11, 2007, held in English, about four months after he was brought to this base for prosecution from years in secret CIA prisons. The agents, one with a Defense Department investigation team, another with the FBI, were part of a “clean team,” investigators sent to Guantánamo Bay to question the men now facing trial and build a new record after CIA interrogations that included the water boarding of Mohammed and other brutal treatment that make their earlier confessions inadmissible at trial. ● The prison library was wrong to reject a 9/11 victim’s gift of a copy of Stephen King’s masterpiece It, and will add the book to the library’s 19,000-volume collection, a military spokesman said. The epic 1986 horror novel about a monster that lurks in some Maine sewers was the only one refused from a donation of about 70 brand-new books by a man whose father was killed at the World Trade Center.

MICHIGAN

Girl, 12, describes vicious bear attack ■ ‘This is it, I’m not going to live, I’m going to die right here,’ recalled a 12-year-old girl after a bear went after her as she jogged at dusk. BY JOHN FLESHER Associated Press

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Struggling desperately to escape a black bear that was mauling her on a dirt trail in northern Michigan, 12-year-old Abby Wetherell feared the worst. “I was just thinking, ‘This is it, I’m not going to live, I’m going to die right here,’ ” Abby told The Associated Press in an interview Monday from her home, where she was recovering from deep cuts to her left thigh and back. “I was really worried about my family, to think they would find me like that.” The seventh-grader was attacked as she jogged at dusk Thursday near her grandfather’s cabin in a wooded area just outside Cadillac, about 200 miles northwest of Detroit. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources has set traps, hoping to capture and euthanize the animal so it can be tested for diseases. On Saturday night, DNR officers killed a 330-pound

bear about 2 miles away after a man shot and wounded it. The carcass was sent to a lab in Lansing to see whether its DNA matches fur and saliva samples taken from Abby’s clothing, though paw prints where she was attacked suggest that bear might have been smaller. Wildlife experts don’t know what caused the bear to attack Abby, who said she often jogs in the area. She had been sitting watching the sunset at her grandfather’s house when she realized it was time to go back to her home nearby. She set off at a trot and suddenly she spotted the bear. “It was running toward me,” Abby said. “I ran as fast as I could, but it got me and took me down. … It clawed me pretty bad, then it kind of went off. So I got up and started running again, and it came back and got me again.” Knocked down a second time, she reached up to pet it: “I was … thinking maybe if I pet it, it would like me. But that didn’t work.”

ROB HESS/AP

HEALING: Abby Wetherell, at home in Cadillac, Mich., needed 100 stitches after a bear attacked her. Abby recalled hearing that playing dead might stop a bear attack. DNR officials say fighting back is a better tactic, but in this case her strategy may have paid off. “It kept looking back at me, but then it just ran off,” she said. A neighbor heard Abby’s screams, notified her parents and got her to a safe spot. She was flown to Munson Medical Center in Traverse City, where she received 100

stitches. Abby was released Sunday. A state trooper who lives nearby provided an escort to her home and a crowd of cheering wellwishers welcomed her with signs and balloons. Although on crutches and in pain, she said she’s doing well. “I’m here and I’m happy,” she said. “Yes, I’ll go back to the cabin … but I won’t go back there by myself.”

NEVADA

Officer killed was groom-to-be ■ The off-duty California Highway Patrol officer died after chasing down his pickup truck that was being stolen at a Las Vegas Strip hotel. BY KEN RITTER Associated Press

LAS VEGAS — An offduty California Highway Patrol officer about to head home from his bachelor party was killed and his brother-in-law was severely injured when they tried to stop a man from stealing the officer’s pickup truck at a Las Vegas Strip hotel, authorities said Monday. Jesus Manuel Magdaleno Jr. ran after the pickup, shouted that he was a CHP officer and jumped into the back cargo area with his relative, Felix Brandon Cruz,

Edition: 1st

while the thief sped wildly away from the valet area at the Flamingo hotel-casino where they had been loading luggage, according to a police report. A witness on the 17th floor of a nearby casino heard the commotion and told police she saw the white 2009 Ford F150 accelerate away from the Strip, mow down construction cones and speed through red lights on an Interstate 15 overpass before it collided with a 2001 Ford Escape SUV and slammed into a traffic signal pole about 11 a.m. Sunday.


“A vehicle is being stolen. His friend is in the bed of the vehicle,” Las Vegas police Lt. MAGDALENO Ray Steiber said of Magdaleno. “He runs to the aid of his friend who is in danger. He gave his life for someone else.” Magdaleno and Cruz were thrown from the bed of the truck. Magdaleno, 33, of Visalia, was killed. He was an eightyear CHP veteran who had been in the Visalia area for three years, the department said. He was due to be married in September.


Cruz, 31, was in extremely critical condition Monday surrounded by family and friends at University Medical Center in Las Vegas, authorities said. The driver, James Robert Montgomery, 29, of Tustin, Calif., was hospitalized with injuries after the crash and booked into the Clark County jail on murder, kidnapping, auto theft and other felony charges. It was the latest in a series of violent incidents on the Strip, including a shooting one week earlier involving an off-duty Las Vegas police detective and suspect Saul Villegas, 27, of Bellflower, Calif., outside the Excalibur hotel-casino.


H1

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2013 | 3A

THE NATION | MORE COVERAGE, 5A GUANTANAMO WAR COURT

Judge makes a secret ruling on secret motion ■ A partially redacted transcript shows the judge refused a government request to withhold information from the defense in the 9/11 case. BY CAROL ROSENBERG [email protected]

During a secret hearing at Guantánamo, the military judge in the 9/11 death-penalty case ruled against a secret government request to withhold information from defense lawyers for accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his four alleged co-conspirators, according to a partially redacted transcript released Tuesday. The hearing, held Aug. 19 at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba, was the first closed pretrial hearing of the Sept. 11 capital case. The subject

matter was so secret that the judge cleared the court of the public and the five men who, if convicted, could be executed for conspiring to carry out the worst attack on U.S. soil, including 2,976 counts of murder. And, while the 31-page transcript of the 29-minute hearing is so riddled with redactions that it is unclear what the Pentagon prosecution team was trying to shield from the defense attorneys, it shows the judge denying the request. “I’m ruling it is discoverable,” Army Col. James L. Pohl said in response to a se-

Mark Martins declined to answer a question on whether the ruling constituted a setback. Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a Pentagon spokesman, refused to elaborate on what went on in the secret session. “All rulings are of some consequence to the path forward,” Breasseale said, adding that the Pentagon prosecutor “remains committed to seeking accountability under law and will continue to do so.” Retired Air Force Col. Morris Davis, who was chief prosecutor when the 9/11 accused were brought to Guantánamo in 2006, questioned what needed to be kept secret in the case a de-

cade after Mohammed’s capture. Declassified CIA documents have already disclosed that agents waterboarded him 183 times. “Whatever need there was for secrecy you’d think a decade would have cured,” he said Tuesday. After reading the partially redacted transcript, he said there was “so much blacked out” that it was hard to discern the significance of the lost prosecution motion. Disclosure of the ruling itself is “beneficial,” Davis said, because it challenges “the perception that the government can do whatever the hell it wants. To the extent that the judge said, ‘au contraire,’ there’s some value in it.”

9/11 rites a quiet last event for mayor

• WASHINGTON, D.C.

Healthcare plan’s ‘data hub’ has been completed Obama administration officials, facing criticism that they are behind schedule in implementing the president’s healthcare law, said Tuesday they have finished a major piece of the technology that will help millions of Americans sign up for insurance this fall. Federal health officials said they have completed the “data hub,” a complex system that will verify people’s Social Security numbers, immigration status and other information when they log on to government websites to buy health plans and apply for government subsidies. The milestone is a significant victory for the administration, which is battling growing skepticism that it will be ready Oct. 1, when people are supposed to be able to start signing up for health plans. FEDS VOW TO EASE POT-RELATED BANKING The Justice Department and federal banking regulators will help clear the way for financial institutions to transact business with the legitimate marijuana industry without fear of prosecution, Deputy Attorney General James Cole told Congress on Tuesday. The issue has taken on greater urgency now that Colorado and Washington have become the first states to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Currently, processing money from marijuana sales puts federally insured banks at risk of drug racketeering charges. Because of the threat of criminal prosecution, financial institutions often refuse to let marijuanarelated businesses open accounts. The problem occurs in states that have laws permitting medical use of marijuana. In 1996, California voters made their state the first to allow medical use, and 19 more states and the District of Columbia have enacted similar laws.

• TROPICAL WEATHER GABRIELLE SETS SIGHTS ON BERMUDA HAMILTON — A strengthening Tropical Storm Gabrielle brought gusty winds, rain and rough surf to Bermuda on Tuesday as it approached the wealthy British territory after reforming over the Atlantic. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm was centered less than 50 miles south of Bermuda Tuesday evening and was moving moving northward with maximum sustained winds of 60 mph. It was expected to pass over or near Bermuda early Wednesday.

• MONTANA FALL FROM CLIFF LINKED TO NEWLYWED HELENA — A newlywed wife with doubts about her eight-day-old marriage confessed she pushed her husband face-first off a cliff in Glacier National Park, then lied about his death and told authorities he had driven off with friends, court documents said. Federal prosecutors have given their version of what happened to Cody Lee Johnson, 25, two months after his body was found in an area of the park so steep and rugged that a helicopter had to be used in the recovery. Jordan Linn Graham, 22, appeared Monday in federal court in Missoula on a second-degree murder charge in Johnson’s July 7 death.

• WASHINGTON, D.C. USDA TOUGHENS INTERNET PET-SALE RULES The Agriculture Department is cracking down on dog breeders who sell puppies over the Internet, issuing new regulations that will force them to apply for federal licenses. The rules announced Tuesday would subject dog owners who breed more than four females and sell the puppies online, by mail or over the phone to the same oversight faced by wholesale animal breeders.

• HEALTH STUDY: EARLY SIGNS OF MS IN SPINAL FLUID New research suggests it might be possible to spot early signs of multiple sclerosis in patients’ spinal fluid, findings that offer a new clue about how this mysterious disease forms. The study released Tuesday was small and must be verified by additional research. But if it pans out, the finding suggests scientists should take a closer look at a different part of the brain than is usually linked to MS. MIAMI HERALD WIRE SERVICES


Pub. date: Wednesday, September 11

from it. Prosecutor Joanna Baltes, a Justice Department classification expert, tried to pin Pohl down on what he would allow the defense lawyers to see. “I’m not ruling on whether they [redacted],” the judge says in the public portion of the transcript. “I’m not ruling on whether [redacted]. I’m not ruling on whether [redacted]. I’m simply saying the information is discoverable and I will address the form at a later date.” Discovery, in a legal setting, is evidence that the prosecution is obliged to show the accused before a trial. At the Pentagon, chief prosecutor Army Brig. Gen.

NEW YORK

NATION BRIEFS

Page: Nation

cret prosecution motion that argues something “is not discoverable.” A government protective order in the case blocks from public view the details of the CIA’s secret prison network where the five alleged plotters were held for years and, they and their lawyers say, were tortured. A censor in the court can cut off the audio to the public if he or the judge fears national security secrets will be spilled. But the judge ruled that in this instance the risk was so great that he closed the Aug. 19 hearing entirely. On Tuesday, the Pentagon released the partial transcript after U.S. intelligence agencies redacted secret information

Last user: cci

■ Neither Mayor Michael Bloomberg nor any other politician will speak at Wednesday’s commemoration of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. BY JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press

NEW YORK — When this year’s Sept. 11 anniversary ceremony unfolds at ground zero, the mayor who has helped orchestrate the observances from their start will be watching for his last time in office. And saying nothing. Over his years as mayor and chairman of the National Sept. 11 Memorial & Museum, Michael Bloomberg has sometimes tangled with victims’ relatives, religious leaders and other elected officials over an event steeped in symbolism and emotion. But his administration has largely succeeded at its goal of keeping the commemoration centered on the attacks’ victims and their families and relatively free of political image-making. In that spirit, no politicians — including the mayor — were allowed to speak last year or will be this year. FUTURE PLANS Memorial organizers expect to take primary responsibility for the ceremony next year and say they plan to continue concentrating the event on victims’ loved ones, even as the forthcoming museum creates a new, broader framework for remembering 9/11. “As things evolve in the future, the focus on the re-

GENE J. PUSKAR/AP

IN SHANKSVILLE, PA.: Visitors to the Flight 93 National Memorial participate in a sunset ceremony Tuesday, the day before the anniversary. membrance is going to stay sacrosanct,” memorial President Joe Daniels says. At Wednesday’s ceremony on the two-year-old memorial plaza, relatives will again read the names of the nearly 3,000 people who died when hijacked jets crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and near Shanksville, Pa. Readers also will recite the 1993 trade center bombing victims’ names. At the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, where Wednesday’s ceremony will include bell-ringing and wreath-laying, officials gathered Tuesday to mark the start of construction of a visitor center. The Pentagon plans a Wednesday morning cere-

mony for victims’ relatives and survivors of the attacks, with wreath-laying and remarks from Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other officials, and an afternoon observance for Pentagon workers. Deciding how to mark the anniversary of the worst terror strike in U.S. history was a sensitive task for Bloomberg and other leaders in the months after the attacks, perhaps especially for the then-new mayor. SETTING THE TONE Officials were planning a memorial service for thousands of families from 90 countries, while also setting a tone for how the public would commemorate 9/11. “That was the challenge that we faced, and it was an

enormous one,” recalls Jonathan Greenspun, who then was part of Bloomberg’s community affairs unit and now is a political consultant. “There was a recognition, by the mayor, that the ceremony had to transcend typical memorial services and the politics that are sometimes associated with them.” Officials fielded about 4,500 suggestions — including a Broadway parade honoring rescue workers and a one-minute blackout of all Manhattan — before crafting a plan centered on reading names at ground zero. “Our intent is to have a day of observances that are simple and powerful,” Bloomberg said as he and then-Gov. George Pataki announced the plans in 2002.

MEDICAL RESEARCH

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Report: Aging U.S. faces cancer crisis

Another debt ceiling showdown looms

WASHINGTON — (AP) — The U.S. is facing a crisis in how to deliver cancer care, as the baby boomers reach their tumor-prone years and doctors have a hard time keeping up with complex new treatments, government advisors reported Tuesday. The caution comes even as scientists are learning more than ever about better ways to battle cancer, and developing innovative therapies to target tumors. And while doctors try to optimize treatment, the Institute of Medicine found “daunting” barriers to achieving high-quality care for all patients. Overcoming those challenges will require changes to the healthcare system, and savvier consumers. “We do not want to frighten or scare people who are getting care now,” said Dr. Patricia Ganz, cancer specialist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who chaired the panel. But too often, decisions about cancer treatments aren’t based on good evidence, and patients may not understand their choices and what to expect, the pan-

BY KEVIN G. HALL

Edition: 1st

el found. For example, some studies suggest that twothirds or more of cancer patients with poor prognoses incorrectly believe the treatments they receive could cure them. Topping the list of recommendations is finding ways to help patients make more informed decisions, with easy-to-understand information on the pros, cons and costs of different treatments. “The patient can’t be passive,” Ganz said. “It’s an important partnership that we need.” The risk of cancer increases with age, and older adults account for just over half of the 1.6 million new cases diagnosed each year. By 2030, new diagnoses are expected to reach 2.3 million a year as the population ages. The report warns there may not be enough oncology specialists to care for them. Perhaps a bigger concern is the growing complexity of care. Scientists are finding genetic differences inside tumors that help explain why one person’s cancer is more aggressive than another’s.


McClatchy Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Absent a late-hour compromise on Capitol Hill, the U.S. government will run out of money to pay its debts and could begin defaulting on its obligations, piecemeal or all at once, around Oct. 18, according to a report Tuesday. The Treasury Department officially ran out of conventional funding sources and has been relying on so-called extraordinary measures to pay creditors since May 17. Those measures are expected to run dry somewhere between Oct. 18 and Nov. 5, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank. The bickering political parties now face the prospects of a potential government shutdown if they don’t pass a budget or a resolution to keep funding the government before Sept. 30. Weeks later, the special measures that amount to moving funds around run out, the new report said, and the federal government can only rely on incoming revenues for cash on hand of about $50 million per day after

Last change at: 23:8:45 September 10

mid-October. The center’s budget experts fear that around Oct. 18, the Treasury Department would be roughly $106 billion short of money needed to pay all the bills due for the next 20 business days. About 32 percent of what’s owed could go unpaid. Such a scenario would force the Treasury Department into the unprecedented dilemma of deciding who gets paid and in what order of priority. It could pit big bondholders such as China and Japan against Social Security and Medicare recipients, soldiers against defense contractors and the elderly against students. “Does it not strike you that this discussion of when the United States might or might not default on debts . . . is the kind of discussion that we simply never would have had 10 or 20 or 30 years ago?” asked Steve Bell, a senior director at the center and a former staff director of the Senate Budget Committee. This “is an extremely irresponsible way to conduct the business of the largest economy and the world’s reserve currency.”