[Vision2020] Boise Lawyers on Team to Represent Detainees

[Tom Hansen]

Note to Arnie:  It looks as though Sunil has recruited two more Idaho 
attorneys into his Idaho-Attorneys-Who-Represent-Terrorists Sleeper Cell.

Book 'em, Donnie-Boy!

>From today's (April 9, 2008) Spokesman Review -

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Boise lawyers on team to represent detainees 
Two defended UI student
Associated Press 
April 9, 2008

BOISE – Two Boise attorneys will be among 11 lawyers working to defend 
detainees who face military trials at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, officials 
with the American Civil Liberties Union say.

Boise lawyer David Nevin and his partner, Scott McKay, previously made a 
successful defense of Sami al-Hussayen, a University of Idaho graduate 
student charged with aiding terrorists, the Idaho Statesman reported.

Nevin and McKay declined to comment.

The ACLU said last week that the two Boise lawyers are part of an $8.5 
million effort to provide top civilian defense attorneys for military 
detainees held at the compound.
 
Among the detainees is one of the alleged masterminds of the Sept. 11, 
2001, terrorist attacks.

"These are a couple of Idaho's finest attorneys," said Jack Van 
Valkenburgh, executive director of the ACLU in Idaho. "They did a very 
good job with Sami al-Hussayen, who was not a terrorist, but charged with 
promoting terrorism. They stood strong in defense of his First Amendment 
rights."

Van Valkenburgh said Nevin and McKay are "true civil libertarians" who are 
willing to withstand the public hostility that can go with representing 
unpopular defendants.

"When the charges are egregious, that's when the accused need the best – 
when the full weight of the government is crashing down," he said.

At al-Hussayen's 2004 trial, Nevin told the jury during closing arguments 
that the charges were "an assault of Sami's right to expression. When you 
slaughter his rights, you slaughter all our rights. We must not permit 
that to happen. It touches on a core issue of what it means to be an 
American."

In a written response after that trial, Nevin explained his reasons for 
defending al-Hussayen.

"Obviously the war on terror cannot be fought entirely in the open," he 
wrote. "Some aspects of intelligence gathering and planning must be kept 
secret in order to be effective. In fairness, secrecy must extend no 
further than is absolutely necessary, and mechanisms for meaningful review 
of government concealment must be in place to assure that it is not 
abused. As we are frequently reminded, eternal vigilance is the price of 
liberty."

Among those to be defended is Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who military 
officials say has confessed to masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks and 
several other terrorist acts, including the beheading of Wall Street 
Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"People who ridicule others while hiding behind anonymous monikers in chat-
room forums are neither brave nor clever." 

- Latah County Sheriff Wayne Rausch (August 21,
2007)

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