The Valentine's Card

A Navy lawyer serving as a deputy legal adviser at a military detention camp printed a list from a secure classified database. It showed the names of the detainees held there, their internment serial numbers, nationalities and the interrogation teams assigned to them. At the time, the government was refusing to release detainees' names to lawyers who were trying to represent them after a Supreme Court ruling allowed detainees to challenge their detention. Two weeks later he cut the printout into more than twenty pieces, put them in a Valentine's Day card and mailed it to a civil-rights lawyer in New York. The defence argued he acted in good faith, believing the names should be released, and never intended any harm to the United States.