Todays Miami Herald ran a story about Lt. Cmdr. Matthew Diaz, a Navy judge advocate general with 17 years of U.S. military service. He faces:
up to 24 years in military prison for mailing a list of Guantánamo detainee names to a civil liberties group -- inside a Valentine --
more.........
The Lt. Cmdr. began his military career as an enlisted soldier, then acquired both a law degree and a commission as a Naval officer. According to the prosecution in his case,
''This case deals with the deliberate, intentional, conscious release of classified information,'' the prosecutor, Navy Lt. James Hoffman, told a jury of seven Navy officers at the week-long trial's opening here at Naval Station Norfolk.
According to the defense,
Defense attorneys countered that the material wasn't marked ''SECRET'' on the computer screen or on the printout, drawn from a Guantánamo database that contains intelligence on war-on-terror captives.
Diaz faces "five charges ranging from unlawfully releasing classified material to conduct unbecoming an officer."
But, in opening arguments, both sides agreed that Diaz mailed the 39-page computer printout of the names and serial numbers to the New York Center for Constitutional Rights in January 2005.
He shrunk the pages in a copier to the size of an index card, Hoffman told the jurors. Then he tucked them inside a Valentine's Day card bearing a picture of a droopy-eyed Chihuahua and mailed it in a fire-engine-red envelope with a return address of Joint Task Force Guantánamo, at the U.S. Navy base in remote southeast Cuba.
There is a question about the information being classified, with the prosecution saying yes, the defense no. The defense counsel:
said his client had a ''crisis of conscience'' during a six-month tour at the offshore prison, where he was deputy staff judge advocate -- and didn't believe the names were a national security secret.
An additional twist to the case is that Diaz's father has been on California's Death Row for over 20 years. Diaz "believes his father was wrongly convicted of killing patients as a healthcare provider."
This sorry case brings Diaz, a man of conscience and solid character, influenced by personal experience with a profound sense of justice and injustice, up against a prosecution that initially attempted to load him with charges that could have incurred a maximum of 36 years in prison.
Lt. Cmdr. Diaz is another victim of conscience who dared to bring to the light of day the treasonous byproducts of the administration's war on terror.