Carol Rosenberg, the Miami Herald's tireless chronicler of the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay who was recently banned from Gitmo for a short time because she had the audacity to report the publicly known identity of a military-commissions witness who had been convicted of abusing suspected terror detainees, has been given a First Amendment Award from the Society of Professional Journalists:
In its announcement of the award, SPJ said that Rosenberg's "expertise has been vital in chronicling opposition to President Obama's order to close" Guantanamo and that "she alone kept close track of Supreme Court-ordered habeas corpus hearings that resulted in release orders and judicial criticism of insufficient evidence that had kept prisoners confined for years."
The announcement also noted that Pentagon officials have repeatedly tried to obstruct her work, including filing a "baseless sex discrimination complaint" against her "in hopes of embarassing Rosenberg."
Rosenberg was one of four journalists the Pentagon banned permanently from Guantanamo in May for allegedly violating ground rules that prohibited the naming of a witness who'd already been publicly identified. Challenged on the constitutionality of such a ban, the Pentagon eventually lifted it and agreed to rewrite its ground rules for journalists covering Guantanamo. The new ground rules have not been made public, however.
Couldn't have been given to a more deserving reporter.
