Detainees Request Permission to Address Revised Force-Feeding Protocols in Aamer v. Obama

The detainees in Aamer v. Obama, the force-feeding case on appeal before the D.C. Circuit, have filed another letter with the court. In a Nov. 21 letter, the government notified the court that the force-feeding protocols were revised on Nov. 14, but declared that the protocols remained "essentially the same." By way of response, the detainees are now requesting permission to file a supplemental brief on the substance of the revised protocols if the court intends to decide the case on the merits. Pointedly, the detainees close with the following:

The Government has not provided this Court with the revised protocols, but has allowed us to review them (except for one portion, which the Government has not yet disclosed to us despite our repeated requests), under designation as “protected information.” Upon such review, we take issue with the Government’s statement in its letter of November 21, 2013 that force-feeding under the revised protocols “remains essentially the same.” Doc. #1467337 at 1 n.1. The purpose of our proposed supplemental briefing would be to demonstrate how the revised protocols differ from the previous version of the protocols, how the revised protocols differ from the Bureau of Prisons force-feeding protocols, and why the revised protocols, like the previous version, do not meet the standard for validity.