Mail privileges of Guantanamo Bay detainees

Master Sergeant Debra A. Tart's account

On July 23, 2002 Master Sergeant Debra A. Tart gave an interview to the American Forces Press Service about the detainees' mail privileges. The report asserts that the detainees were all offered an opportunity to send a postcard to their family, shortly after their arrival, telling their family where they were. Many of the detainees' families have reported they didn't learn the detainee was in Guantanamo until 2006, when the Department of Defense was forced to publish a list of all the detainees held in Guantanamo.

Tart told the American Forces Press Service that the 564 detainees had sent out 1,600 pieces of mail, through her office, during the camp's first six months, and had received 300 replies. She added that some detainees had sent out mail with the visitors from the International Committee of the Red Cross on their quarterly inspections.

Lieutenant Wade Brown's affidavit

In response to a habeas corpus petition, on March 25, 2005, First Lieutenant Wade M. Brown submitted an affidavit describing how the detainees' email was processed.

Brown described two of the three routes through which detainees were permitted to receive mail:

Detainees' accounts

Some Guantanamo detaineess, such as Abdul Razzaq Hekmati, testified that during their stay in Guantanamo they had not received a single response to any of the letters they sent out.

Lawyers for Mani Al Utaybi described trying to have their first letter delivered to him, to inform him that his relative had secured their help on his behalf, for over a year prior to his suicide on June 10, 2006—but camp authorities had refused to deliver their mail.

During an interview on Chicago Public Radio's This American Life, Joe Margulies reported:

Carol Rosenberg, writing in the Miami Herald, quoted Kristin Wilhelm, one of the detainees' attorneys, about the censorship of hand-drawn greeting cards her client had prepared for her and her colleagues. Recent rule changes allowed detainees to be issued crayons, and allowed to make drawings. Her client, Yemeni Suleiman al Nahdi, drew greeting cards for her and her colleagues—which military censors would not allow through. According to Wilhelm:

Captives' attorney/client privileged mail

On November 1, 2011 the Washington Post reported on the attempts of nine of detainees' military defense attorney to challenge the reading of their Lawyers representing detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, say authorities at the military base have begun reading privileged attorney-client communication — in a sharp break with past practice. The Washingtpon Post called this "a sharp break with past practice". According to the United Press International an unnamed military official attributed the change in policy to the recent appointment of the new camp commandant Rear Admiral David B. Woods. UPI reported that up until October camp officials would open the privileged mail in front of the detainee, to confirm that the envelope did not contain contraband items, and then would give it to the detainee, without reading it.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed's attorney was one of the lawyers who wrote a letter to William K. Lietzau, deputy assistant secretary of defense for rule of law and detainee policy. They argued that the rules for military commissions specifically protect attorney-client mail. The Washington Post published a passage from the letter.

“Violations of the attorney-client privilege are acutely egregious in the context of death penalty litigation where the Supreme Court has long held that heightened due process applies. It is important to note that the legal materials discussed are not classified.”

In response, the Chief Defense Counsel (United States) ordered the attorneys under his supervision to stop sending privileged communications to Guantanamo prisoners. Approximately two years after the policy change, in November 2013, the Guantanamo military commission issued an order setting up a "privilege team" to act as an intermediary.

New rules

Captain Patrick M. McCarthy, Joint Task Force Guantanamo's Staff Judge Advocate submitted an affidavit about further restrictions the Department of Defense wanted to place on mail between Guantanamo habeas counsels and their clients. McCarthy asserted that attorneys for the prisoners had provided a copy of a book on Abu Ghraib, a speech given at an Amnesty International conference about the war on terror, and other materials, and that such materials threatened prison security.