User:Geo Swan/Anne Leanos

Anne Leanos is an officer in the United States Navy Reserve. She is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy. In 2017 Leanos was recalled to serve as spokesperson for Joint Task Force Guantanamo.

In December 2017 the oldest individual held in Guantanamo, Saifullah Paracha was denied permission to read a book drafted by a relative of a victim of the collapse of the World Trade Center, on September 11th, 2001. The book was entitled "September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows: Turning Tragedy into Hope for a Better World," and was provided to Paracha by his lawyer, Shelby Sullivan-Bennis. Leanos, as Public Affairs Officer, was only authorized to say the censors had followed an official procedure, which she could not publicly explain.

In 2009, when United States President Barack Obama replaced George W. Bush the individuals held in Guantanamo started to receive art classes. In 2018 it fell to Leanos to explain the position taken by the US military that the US Government owned all intellectual property rights to the artwork prisoners created -- not the prisoners themselves.

In February 2018 Leanos hosted the first tour of the base in more than six months. In his account of that tour David Welna noted how Leanos didn't explain new, more restrictive rules, and implied policies. He noted how she described the camp's primary mission of the camp was "the safe, humane care and custody of law-of-armed-conflict detainees," while, under the Obama administration the mission had been the "safe, humane, legal and transparent care and custody of enemy combatants"

In October 2018 Carol Rosenberg contrastred the Guantanamo Library's commemoration of banned book week, with the inexplicable censorship of books donated to the captives' library. She noted Leanos attempts to defend that censorship.