Thanks to an October 2001 opinion by John Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty,  the legal floodgates were opened to implementation of martial law, evidenced by transformation of the Coast Guard from a federal policing agency into a domestic military force:

Earlier this month, the United States Coast Guard upheld its self-declared status as a 'special' branch of the military with the ability to prosecute civilians in military tribunals. This startling declaration, unreported in the media, came in a Decision on Appeal related to the case of Lieutenant Eric Shine, a commissioned Naval officer in the Merchant Marines and a graduate of Kings Point Military Service Academy, and was penned by the Vice Commandant of the Coast Guard...

Download an interview with Eric Shine about his case, the Coast Guard and the open implementation of martial law here

Photo c/o Global Research

Lawyers say the once-secret logs stand apart from other reports about the Iraqi security agencies because the accounts of mistreatment are recorded -- and sometimes corroborated -- by the Americans themselves.

"It's not as if, if we didn't have these documents, we wouldn't know that torture was widespread," said Matthew Pollard, who works as a legal adviser for Amnesty International, a human rights group which repeatedly warned that abuse was widespread in Iraq. "What's new is confirmation -- in their own documents -- that they didn't dispute that."

see Who's to blame for torture? Lawyers probe logs

KABUL - A detainee being held by troops from the NATO-led force in Afghanistan was found dead in his holding cell, and an investigation is underway, the force said in a statement on Monday.

The man was captured during a military operation by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) on Saturday and was "found dead" the following day in his cell in Kandahar province, ISAF said in a statement...

Prisoner abuse and deaths of detainees while in the custody of foreign troops is a sensitive subject for many Afghans after U.S. troops beat to death two prisoners in 2002 at the old Bagram prison at the U.S. Bagram Air Base north of Kabul.

REUTERS story here

Special Report: Detainee Experimentation Program Revealed

For the past seven months, Truthout reporter Jason Leopold and contributor Jeffrey Kaye investigated the origins of a little-known directive issued in March 2002 by former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz that severely weakened protections implemented decades ago against human subject research and experimentation conducted by the Department of Defense (DoD).

This directive, "Protection of Human Subjects and Adherence to Ethical Standards in DoD-Supported Research," was issued about a month after President George W. Bush stripped "war on terror" detainees of traditional prisoner-of-war protections under the Geneva Conventions. It limited safeguards against research and experimentation to "prisoners of war."

Drawing on interviews with more than 15 former military and intelligence officials and ethical scholars, Leopold's and Kaye's investigation found that the Wolfowitz directive became the legal document the DoD used to support a top-secret interrogation program at Guantanamo where psychologists and interrogators experimented on ways to glean information from unwilling detainees to measure levels of stress and to achieve "deception detection."

Click Here to Read the Special Report

Protests and Speeches Mark Berkeley's First Annual "Say No to Torture" Week

Thursday 14 October 2010

Stone-Walled by Obama Justice Department

Saturday, October 2, 2010

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- "Shut Down Guantanamo, Meet with Us! We Demand Justice, Meet with Us!" A group of fifteen anti-torture activists picketed the Obama Justice Department this afternoon.

After meeting with the Justice Department's Office of Intergovernmental and Public Liaison on June, 15 2010 to discuss the Obama administration's controversial record on detention issues, a coalition of human rights advocates were promised further dialogue with the Department. However they have been denied any further meeting, despite repeated requests. No one at the Justice Department responded to the multiple follow up letters and phone calls.

"This is the kind of treatment that compels us to the streets, to direct action, to witness and organize for justice instead of lobbying for it. This is why we are laying the ground work for a twelve day fast and daily vigil in January 2011," says Matt Daloisio, an organizer with Witness Against Torture. "January 11 is the date in 2002 that the first 'enemy combatants' were brought to Guantanamo. We will demonstrate and fast each day through January 22--the day of broken promises, when President Obama signed the executive order closing Guantanamo and ending torture in 2009."