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The Obama Administration is denying journalist access to the Guantanamo detention facility despite pledging 'transparency' about the infamous prison.
The reporters, who were previously allowed to peek into the prison while covering military trials of the detainees there, are no longer given such authorization, FOXNews reported on Monday.
Arguing in favor of the decision, Defense Department Spokesman Bryan Whitman said "Past experience has led me to believe it is best to keep these visits focused on the purpose of the trip, which in this case is military commission motions," not the detention camps.
The recent news blackout came, according to Herridge, after a May incident in which two Chinese detainees at Guantanamo's Camp Iguana compound "held up signs questioning whether the president was a communist or a Democrat and they questioned whether Mr. Obama was oppressing them because they had not been released five months after the president promised to close Guantanamo within a year."
"…multiple sources have told us this incident was the straw that broke the camel's back,” asserted Herridge. “It was highly embarrassing for the Defense Department and for the White House and this was, interestingly enough, the last trip for the journalists to the camps to cover the commission hearings."