After a day-long hearing, she decided to resume on Monday the trial that will determine if Moussaoui, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy in connection with the hijacked airliner attacks, will be executed.

But Brinkema said the Federal Aviation Administration and Transportation Security Administration witnesses who had been contacted by government lawyer Carla Martin would not be able to testify and evidence from them would not be allowed.

"I am removing from this case any and all witnesses and evidence dealing with the aviation component," Brinkema said.

"What we have in this case ... is that six witnesses -- two for the government and four potential defense witnesses, were tainted," she said.

Aviation-related testimony was expected to deal with how much information the FAA had about possible threats to airlines and also discuss pre-September 11 security measures. The prosecution had argued the witnesses were vital, with the aviation portion of the government's argument representing about half of the evidence of Moussaoui's guilt.

The government is trying to prove that if Moussaoui had not lied to the FBI when he was arrested three weeks before September 11, the FAA would been able to thwart the attacks through increased security measures on airplanes.

Brinkema's ruling was greeted with dismay by relatives of people who died on September 11.

"I felt like my heart had been ripped out. I felt like my husband had been killed again," said Rosemary Dillard, whose husband Eddie was killed when a plane smashed into the Pentagon. "I felt like the government has let me down once again."

At issue is the material witness law that Congress passed in 1984 to allow for the arrest and detention of witnesses who might flee before testifying in criminal cases.

The investigation began after a report by two civil liberties groups said the Bush administration had used the law to detain at least 70 people since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The disclosure came from the inspector general, Glenn Fine, in a semiannual report required by the Patriot Act.

The department's Office of Professional Responsibility, which reviews allegations of misconduct, is looking into the cases of 13 individuals and one group of eight people who were detained together, Fine said.

They were not further identified. The group appears to be the eight Egyptian men from Evansville, Ind., who were held for about a week in 2001 on material witness warrants when one of their wives falsely accused them of planning a suicide attack.

The government has apologized to them and to at least five other people detained under that law.

At least 30 of the 70 prisoners were never called to testify before a court or grand jury, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch reported in June.

Only 28 people were charged with a crime and most of those charges were unrelated to terrorism, the groups said. Seven were charged with providing material support to terrorist organizations.

Fine's report also catalogs potential violations by the FBI of laws and regulations relating to national security investigations. The bureau reported 108 instances in the past two years of tapping the wrong telephone number, intercepting the wrong e-mail, continuing to listen in on communications even though the warrant had expired and other problems.

One of the FBI documents, unveiled at a news conference by the two groups, carried the headline ``International Terrorism Matters'' and referred to the FBI's work with an anti-terrorism task force that includes several agencies.

Another FBI document said the Pittsburgh Joint Terrorism Task Force had learned that ``The Thomas Merton Center ... has been determined to be an organization which is opposed to the United States' war with Iraq.''

A separate document noted, ``One female leaflet distributor who appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent, inquired if (confidential source's name withheld) was an FBI agent. No other TMC participants appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent.''

FBI officials in Pittsburgh said the bureau was engaged in legitimate investigations, and in one case dropped the probe upon determining a person photographed at one demonstration was not whom they were looking for.

``We had a legitimate purpose for being there,'' FBI special agent Bill Crowley said, referring to a November 2002 protest.

The ACLU said the spying fit a pattern of federal abuse following the September 11 attacks. U.S. President George W. Bush has generally received high marks from the public for taking a strong hand in security matters.

``From the FBI to the Pentagon to the National Security Agency, this administration has embarked on an unprecedented campaign to spy on innocent Americans,'' Ann Beeson, associate legal director of the ACLU, said in a statement.

LEAFLET DISTRIBUTION OBSERVED

An FBI memo dated November 2002 said the Merton Center ''holds daily leaflet distribution activities in downtown Pittsburgh and is currently focused on its opposition to the potential war in Iraq.'' The war began in March 2003.

The memo called the Merton Center ``a left-wing organization advocating, among many political causes, pacifism.''

The FBI acknowledged the report sounded as if it were reporting on the activities of an anti-war group, but said ''such a characterization would be factually misleading.''

The agent was pursuing leads ``from another source possibly establishing a link between an ongoing investigation and the group engaging in anti-war protests. Finding no such link, he terminated his surveillance,'' the FBI said in a statement.

Although previously disclosed documents showed the FBI was retaining files on anti-war groups, the ACLU said these documents were the first to show conclusively that the FBI targeted the Merton Center because of its pacifism.

``We know that this surveillance is about the political views of the Thomas Merton Center because that's what the documents say,'' said Mary Catherine Roper, an attorney with the Pittsburgh ACLU.

Merton Center director Jim Kleissler said his group filed the request for FBI documents because its members believed they were being spied on by the FBI in 2002 and 2003 while they protested against the imminent war in Iraq.

Kleissler said he was not particularly surprised to find that his group was being investigated by the FBI "but we were surprised that it was so closely tied to terrorism."

The Chicago Tribune claims to have uncovered more than 2,600 people who work for the CIA, and said that the security agency had confirmed that part of the list included details on covert agents.

This list included the names of CIA operatives assigned to US embassies throughout Europe. At the CIA's request the Chicago Tribune has not published this information.

The internet searches also identified CIA properties in Florida, Chicago, Ohio, northern Virginia, Pennsylvania, Utah and Washington state.

Some of the buildings are official premises under guard, while other addresses appear to be private residences.

"Cover is a complex issue that is more complex in the internet age," said Jennifer Dyck, a chief CIA spokeswoman. "There are things that worked previously that no longer work."

Dyck refused to comment on the actions that would be taken to remedy the security breach "since we don't want the bad guys to know what we're fixing".

"Consistent with applicable law, we are aggressively using biometrics for the purposes that you described, Senator," McHale answered. DoD established standard procedures for collecting biometrics information about a year and a half ago and provided that system to overseas U.S. combatant commands, McHale said.

Biometrics is defined as measurable physical or behavioral characteristics that can be used to identify people. Terrorists in Iraq often employ IEDs, or roadside bombs, against U.S., coalition, and Iraqi military forces and civilians.

Cornyn also asked McHale if DoD was sharing its detainee biometrics information with the U.S. Departments of Justice, State or Homeland Security, so that detainees who might escape could be prevented from entering the United States to do mischief.

McHale responded that DoD's detainee biometrics information databank is collocated with the FBI and is also shared with the Department of Homeland Security and other agencies.

The biometrics program used for identifying detainees "is an extraordinary success story," McHale said. In many instances, he added, that biometric data has kept dangerous detainees safely under lock and key.

"We have linked that data to specific individuals and in specific cases have kept them in custody under circumstances, where but for that biometric data, they might have been released," McHale said.

Similar systems are being used to improve force protection at U.S. military bases in Iraq. During a demonstration conducted in the Washington, D.C., area in May 2005, officials showed how biographical data, facial photographs, fingerprints and iris scans can be employed to develop ID cards that can't be counterfeited, ideal for use by Iraqis and other non-U.S. citizens who work on U.S. bases in Iraq.

The need for a better way to screen people coming onto U.S. bases in Iraq was illustrated by the Dec. 21, 2004, bombing of a military dining facility in Mosul. That blast killed 22 people, including 14 U.S. soldiers, and wounded at least 50. It was first thought the dining hall had been hit by a rocket attack.

Further investigation of the Mosul bombing pointed to the likelihood that a suicide bomber had infiltrated the base - one non-U.S. person killed couldn't be identified - and set off the explosion.

"We condemn the Mail on Sunday for further attempting to perpetuate the myth that University campuses are breeding grounds for radicalism and extremism," Wakkas Khan, Fosis president, said.

"If allegations of extremism were really as widespread as is often claimed, then there would be no need to resort to such measures," he said.

The University of London Union said last week it was considering banning the sale of the Daily Mail following reports that its sister paper has been trying to bribe students to spy on their Muslim colleagues.

Fosis, which represents over 90,000 Muslim students in the UK, said that Islamic Societies play a "highly pivotal role in bridging the gap between Muslim Students and the wider student body."

"It is important the media recognize the importance of such institutions on campus and promotes them within the positive light which they deserve. The students they represent are a far cry from the enemy within," Khan said.

DN broadcasts his first comments in this country since the publication of his book in Britain, "Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim's Journey to Guantanamo and Back." [includes rush transcript] The Associated Press yesterday sued the Defense Department for the release of records identifying all past and current detainees at the US-run prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The AP's suit was filed after the Pentagon failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the AP in January. Last month, the military was ordered to turn over uncensored copies of transcripts from hearings for detainees held at Guantanamo. The transcripts were released, however they were censored, and names and other key details were blacked out.

As international calls grow for the closure of the US-run prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, today we bring you a voice rarely heard in the US media, that of a former Guantanamo prisoner. In a Democracy Now broadcast exclusive, today we hear Moazzam Begg in his own words.

Moazzam is a British citizen born and raised in Birmingham. The story of his ordeal begins in mid-2001 when he moved to Afghanistan with his wife and three young children to work as an aid worker in education and water projects. After September 11th and the subsequent U.S. bombing of Afghanistan, he relocated to Pakistan.

In February 2002, Moazzam was seized by the CIA in Islamabad. No reasons were given for his arrest. He was hooded, shackled and cuffed and flown to the U.S. detention facility at Kandahar, then to Bagram airbase where he was held for approximately a year before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. government labeled him an "enemy combatant." He was never charged with a crime.

In all, Moazzam spent three years in prison, much of it in solitary confinement. He was subjected to over three hundred interrogations as well as death threats and torture. At Bagram, he witnessed the killing of two fellow detainees.

In January 2005, he was finally released from Guantanamo along with three other British citizens. He received no apology or compensation for his imprisonment.

Moazzam Begg has written a book about his experience that has just been published in the UK titled "Enemy Combatant: A British Muslim's Journey to Guantanamo and Back." It is the first book known to be published by a former Guantanamo Bay prisoner. The book is co-written by Victoria Brittain, a former associate foreign editor of the Guardian newspaper.

Last week, Victoria Brittain and Moazzam Begg held a public conversation and Q&A at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in central London. Democracy Now was there to cover the story. In this U.S. national broadcast exclusive, we bring you Moazzam's first comments to air in this country since he wrote his book. At the event, I had the chance to ask Moazzam about the abuse he suffered while in prison.

AMY GOODMAN: Last week, Victoria Brittain and Moazzam Begg held a public conversation at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in Central London. Democracy Now! was there to cover the story. In this national broadcast exclusive, we bring you Moazzam's first comments to air in this country since he wrote his book. After he and Victoria Brittain spoke, I had a chance to ask Moazzam about the abuse he suffered while he was in prison.

AMY GOODMAN: Moazzam, though you are almost synonymous with Guantanamo, when people think about it, in your book you describe being tortured at Bagram. And I was wondering if you could talk about what happened to you there, who tortured and interrogated you, and if you saw other people or knew of other people at Bagram who were killed or abused.

MOAZZAM BEGG: Yeah. I think it's important also to note that when we are talking about Guantanamo Bay, in a sense, or in fact, it's not as bad as Bagram at all. People know about Guantanamo Bay, because it's in the news every day. You hear about it. You think it's this terrible place, and it is, because of the absence of the law. But what's worst than Guantanamo Bay are places like these black holes of detention, where you don't know what's going on, where there is no access to media, where the media doesn't know what's going on, and neither does anybody else, including the relatives and so forth. There is no communication. And it is a place that's – it's a military base, but the C.I.A. has complete and utter control of what takes place there. And no wonder in places like Bagram people are killed, and no wonder in Guantanamo Bay we haven't heard of any deaths yet, because in places like Bagram, they can try and justify themselves by the proximity, as they call it, towards the war zone.

While I was held in Bagram, it was probably one of the hardest periods of the whole of the incarceration. One particular month in May, I was subjected to some extremely harsh interrogation techniques, which included being -- or having my hands tied behind my back to my legs like an animal, as they call in America "hogtied," with a hood placed over my head so I was in a suffocating position, kicked and beaten and sworn at and spat at, left to rot in this position for hours and hours on end and taken again into interrogation, and this lasted over a period of over a month.

That wasn't the worst of it, of course. The worst of it, for me, was the psychological part, because all of this time I had no communication with my family at all. I didn't know what happened to my wife or my children. For all I knew, they could have done terrible things to them. And that was the biggest fear.

And I met the International Committee of the Red Cross, and they allowed me to write letters, but, of course, all of these letters had to be passed through the U.S. military censorship, and they must have read all of the letters, and in them I expressed my deep anguish about the state of asking where my wife was to my parents. In one of the interrogations, I remember quite clearly, they had this -- I heard the sounds of a woman screaming. And at the back of my mind, I thought, no, it can't be what I truly think it is. And as the screaming got worse and worse and the shouting to this woman got worse, my heart rate went up, and I started imagining the unimaginable. And certainly they were playing on this. It was, I believe, to this day it probably written on my file: if you want to get to this guy, do it through his family. And so, that was definitely one of the hardest parts. Many detainees, even, in fact, afterwards, when I was removed from that isolation unit, said that, you know, we were praying to God that it's not your wife. Well, thankfully, it wasn't.

And the worst situation, I think, that I saw there was the deaths of the detainees. I mean, you can see -- you can deal with your own abuse to some degree. What you can't do is to see somebody else's and then sit by and let it happen, and yet I was in such a impotent position that I saw a person who had been chained with his hands above his head like this, which is what they'd often do, which would often happen to me if I was just talking to the person next door to me, which was deemed punishable. This person was left suspended like this for hours, and eventually guards came and they beat him, dragged him upstairs, and we never saw or heard of him again.

A year-and-a-half later, internal investigators from the military came and asked me if I would look at a picture. They showed me a picture, and it was a man's body, and they said that he had been killed, could I describe any of the details that I had saw in Bagram at that time, and I described to them what I saw. And then they brought photographs of the people that they said were responsible – could be responsible from the military units, the M.P.s, and I pointed out to the people who I believed had done it. And then, ironically, this was a time when I was in solitary confinement, also worried about facing a possible military commission by President Bush's order, they said, "Would you be ready to stand up as a witness in a trial against these perpetrators?" That was so ironic.

AMY GOODMAN: Who did it to you?

MOAZZAM BEGG: Oh, the interrogators at the time? Yes, it was a whole group of them. There were C.I.A., F.B.I., and Military Intelligence. Those were at least the three groups that were there during that interrogation.

AMY GOODMAN: Moazzam, you talked about one of the men who was killed at Bagram, and you described the guard at Guantanamo who talked about killing another. How did he kill that person?

MOAZZAM BEGG: What had happened, I think the detainee's number was 284, as I recall. This was said to be an escape attempt at the backs of the cells in Guantanamo -- in Bagram. They were all common [inaudible]. There was about seven or eight people in each cell. At the back of the cell was this barrel that they had cut in half, which was, you know, the toilet. That was surrounded by some barbed wire. He apparently had pushed the barbed wire through, pushed the barrel and tried to escape. The guards caught him, jumped on him and, in essence, threw Thai boxing-style strikes at him, as this guy told me. And I saw them dragging his body across the cell where I was held, in cell 6, into the medical room, right in front where we were. At that point, I wasn't sure whether he was dead, but he looked completely battered and bruised, and all the dust that was on him. A while after that, after all the medics and the officers were running around this area, his body was carried out on a stretcher with the sheet covering his head.

AMY GOODMAN: And the sexual abuse at Guantanamo and at Bagram?

MOAZZAM BEGG: Umm…

VICTORIA BRITTAIN: I don't think you need to go into that.

MOAZZAM BEGG: I would rather just not answer that here.

VICTORIA BRITTAIN: I think we'll leave that.

AMY GOODMAN: Moazzam Begg, speaking last week in London at the Institute of Contemporary Art, just after the British release of his book, Enemy Combatant. It's coming to this country in the fall. These are his first national broadcast comments in this country. Imprisoned at Bagram Air Base, and then Guantanamo for over three years. When we come back we talk to his co-writer of the book, Victoria Brittain, the former Associate Editor of the Guardian, and we will also speak with his attorney, Gareth Peirce.

Meanwhile, Colleen Graffy, the US deputy assistant secretary of state for public diplomacy, was in London last week on a propaganda offensive. Ms Graffy had visited Guantánamo and witnessed no unpleasant interrogation, no torture and plenty of sports facilities, she told Jeremy Vine on Radio 2. The imperturbable Vine was speechless when she drew from her bag a sample tube used for force-feeding prisoners and explained to him that it had no metal edges and was therefore humane.

The force-feeding at Guantánamo has been strongly condemned in a letter signed by 250 doctors in The Lancet. However, wider British audiences will have read not that, but "How Innocent is Moazzam Begg?" over Andrew Gilligan's interview in the Evening Standard, while in the Daily Mail a rant from Richard Littlejohn linked Begg and the Tiptons, claiming their stories don't stand up to "close scrutiny".

Five years ago, in the British Journalism Review, David Leigh reported on cases of intelligence services using journalists. One was the 1995 Sunday Telegraph story about the son of Libya's Colonel Gadafy and his alleged connection to a currency-counterfeiting plan. The story was written by Mr Coughlin, the paper's then chief foreign correspondent, and was originally attributed to a "British banking official". In fact - as emerged in a libel case brought by Gadafy's son - it had been given to him by an MI6 officer, who, it transpired, had been a regular contact for years.

Whatever the intentions of Coughlin and other journalists, the innocence of Begg, the Tipton Three and the other British detainees who have come home is a part of the story of Guantánamo that no official wants people to hear. Like all major miscarriages of justice finally overturned, the officials concerned will never apologise for breaking these men's lives, no one in authority will lose their jobs, and sections of the media will continue to question their innocence. The denial of justice for these British Muslims - not to speak of the 490 men, including nine UK residents, still in Guantánamo with no legal rights - will corrode the social fabric of this country far into the future.

But the horror of Bagram, Guantánamo and other secret American detention and torture centres for Muslims, in which the UK government is scandalously complicit, is now so well known throughout the world that no propaganda offensive by western officials and their friends has any prospect of lasting success.