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In her , Hina writes about the military commission hearing of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, one of Osama bin Laden's former drivers. Government prosecutors have charged Hamdan with conspiracy and providing material support to al-Qaeda. Hina describes the efforts of Hamdan's defense attorney to gain access to seven other prisoners on the island who might provide information that could exonerate Hamadan. The problem? The government isn't having it: prosecutors assert that these seven men are such high-value detainees that they can't be asked questions, or even spoken to, for fear of their divulging information that would jeopardize national security. (Sounds familiar, right?) Hina writes:

[T]he judge himself tried to fashion a compromise, based on precedent established in the government's prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui. He suggested that, instead of personal interviews, the parties agree that the defense could submit written questions and get written answers in response. Again, the prosecution vigorously objected, saying that even this risked the disclosure of national security information. At one point in the argument, the judge asked whether, "just because they are high-value detainees, no one can talk to them?" The prosecution agreed. As the judge later said, the men are "wrapped up in secret tape.

In other Gitmo news, this morning the Pentagon announced that it would seek the death penalty for six Guantanamo detainees charged with planning the 9/11 attacks, including four of the men to whom Hamdan's counsel seek access. But as we've pointed out repeatedly, the Bush administration's flawed military commissions system has yet to bring a single detainee to trial, and now they'd like to bring six detainees on capital charges?

Tom Fleener, an Army Reserve major who was until recently a military defense lawyer at Guantanamo, said that bringing death penalty cases in the military commission system would bog down the untested system. He noted that many legal questions remain unanswered at Guantanamo, including how much of the trials will be conducted in closed, secret proceedings; how the military judges will handle evidence obtained by interrogators' coercive tactics; and whether the judges will require experienced death-penalty lawyers to take part in such cases.

In 2006, the Supreme Court struck down the first version of the Military Commission System. Among the issues to be determined for the trial of these six men is whether information or evidence extracted from the detainees through torture- the CIA confirmed waterboarding one of the detainees charged, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed-will be admissible at trial.

The government has also said that it will share all evidence against the defendants at trial with their attorneys. Charitable, no? We'll be keeping a close eye on these proceedings, so stay tuned.