"In the continuing controversy over the treatment of torture in Zero Dark Thirty, a crucial scene has been overlooked – one that makes the film’s point of view clear, even if it’s less attention-grabbing than images of waterboarding. The scene comes late in the movie, after the CIA has surmised that Osama bin Laden is possibly hiding in Abbottabad, Pakistan. One government official wonders aloud whether a Guantánamo detainee might be able to confirm that location, to which a CIA operative replies, “Who the hell am I supposed to ask, some guy in Gitmo who’s all lawyered up?” He explains that any lawyer will simply tip off al-Qaeda.

Defense lawyers are used to being portrayed in the media as morally questionable hired guns, while their police and prosecutorial counterparts play committed heroes who avenge victims and put the bad guys away. Even in the left-leaning HBO series The Wire, which broke the mold of the police procedural, the main defense attorney unscrupulously helps gangsters hide criminal activity, while the head prosecutor is accurately described on Wikipedia as one of the show’s “most morally upright figures.”

Zero Dark Thirty accomplishes something extraordinary in this regard, bringing defense attorneys down even further in a movie that, according to director Kathryn Bigelow, “doesn’t judge.” Defense lawyers are no longer just shysters, but traitors – moles who would call their closest al-Qaeda associate if a client were asked to assist in a matter of national security".

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http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/278491-what-zero-dark-thirty-gets-wrong-about-guantanamo-lawyers#...