Secrecy still veils Guantanamo hearings

Source McClatchy Newspapers

The first full military commission hearings here since Barack Obama became president and pledged to deliver transparency were no more open than the court process had been under President George W. Bush, critics say. The hearings on Canadian Omar Khadr's claim of abuse opened with a new rule book and closed with the Pentagon banishing four veteran reporters. One of the witnesses was subpoenaed in secret, six testified under pseudonyms and security officers closed the court to screen a video that's available on YouTube. "That's what's so heartbreaking. Obama actually promised transparency,'' said Human Rights Watch observer Stacy Sullivan, a veteran war court observer who passed a note to the judge asking for release of updated case pleadings.