Gitmo Detainees Will be Allowed to Phone Home (Who Needs Lynn Stewart Anymore?)
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA — Pentagon officials disclosed today that they have been persuaded by international human rights advocates to allow foreign terror suspects imprisoned here to have occasional phone calls with their families.
The change in a policy that has kept the 275 foreign men still held here in isolation for as long as six years remains in the early planning phase, said Army Lt. Col. Ed Bush, a spokesman for the Joint Task Force that runs the prison and interrogation compound.
“We’ve been told to figure out how to run a program that would allow detainees to call home,” Bush said of an order that came down from the Pentagon in December.
He said many of the details remained to be worked out, including how often a prisoner could make or receive a call, whether all would be eligible, where the men would be given access to a phone and who would pay for the communications.