The Justice Department is backing the Pentagon’s refusal to provide documents showing the cost of building a prison compound at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to a Miami Herald reporter, Carol Rosenberg. Rosenberg filed a 2009 Freedom of Information Act request in support of her reporting on what Guantanamo costs the U.S. taxpayer. The Justice Department claimed that some documents are exempt from disclosure because releasing the information would damage national security. (McClatchy DC, February 1, 2014, by Mark Seibel)
Rosenberg has determined that the annual cost of maintaining the Guantanamo prison at “a little under half a billion dollars” or about $2.7 million per prisoner per year. That figure does not include some building costs. (The Washington Post, July 31, 2013, by Mark Fisher)
Rosenberg is on record about the difficulties of reporting from Guantanamo. They range from the inconvenience of the air flight to the prison and once there the accommodations to the lack of due process if you want to challenge a blockage. A solider stands close by to dictate which photos must be deleted, and there is constant censorship of such items as the names of drugs given to detainees. (McClatchy DC, July 26, 2010, by Carol Rosenberg)