Journo vs. Pentagon in Gitmo Stand-Off; Banned for Revealing Public Name

Back in May, the Pentagon banned from Gitmo four journalists for “revealing” the name of a witness whose name was all over the open Internet. Now, three of the reporters are back. The fourth tells Danger Room he can’t return to Guantanamo Bay to report on the trials there just yet.

In a nutshell: to return to Guantanamo, the banned scribes needed to assure a senior Pentagon public affairs official named Bryan Whitman that they will respect a set of ground rules intended to prevent the release of sensitive information about detainees and the detention facility. The witness was testifying under cover of anonymity, even though his name had been previously revealed –ironically, in an on-record interview years ago with one of the banned journalists.

From Paul Koring’s perspective, that assurance is too close to an admission of guilt. “I have not met Whitman’s requirement for a personal letter that admits I broke the ground rules,” e-mails Koring, a D.C.-based journalist for the Globe & Mail — a sticking point for him, since, he adds, ”I don’t believe I did.”

As we reported on Friday, a number of news organizations are pressing the Pentagon to clarify those ground rules to meet cases like the one that got the four journos banned. Among the questions they’d like the Pentagon to answer: How are journalists supposed to deal information that’s already in the public domain, accessible to anyone with Google and Wikipedia, but that the Defense Department unilaterally decides is off limits?

In any case, Koring says he intends to write a letter to Whitman requesting reinstatement. “Whether it satisfies the conditions he has imposed for lifting the ban — which amounts to a refusal to transport journalists to Guantanamo unless they agree to his conditions — will be up to him.”

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