It's impossible to visit Guantanamo Bay (GTMO) Naval Station and not receive an earful about Carol Rosenberg of the Miami Herald. The colonel in charge of the prison and the military communication teams at GTMO may find her tenacity causing unexpected work, but if they're annoyed it's tempered by their immense respect for her.
Carol was sitting in the dirt at Camp X-Ray Jan. 11, 2002 as the first round of detainees arrived late in the day. Originally meant to house the countless refugees that pass through base, Camp X-Ray is now deserted and looks much like the temporary confinement facility it was meant to be.
The dirt mounds Carol sat on awaiting that first transport almost a dozen years ago are still there, as are the cells, guard towers, and interrogation sheds.
In fact, it's all there, as it was in late April 2002, when all detainees were moved to a new camp. It's required by law that all previous facilities and documentation remain untouched until trials are complete.
Carol Rosenberg is still there as well, and since August she's been reporting with Google Glass and posting to her blog at the Herald.
Her most recent video of a close-up look at GTMO's morgue-turned-soda-cooler is a result of Rosenberg's selection by Google as one of the 8,000 people to be "Glass Explorers." She paid $1,500 for the privilege of running the new tech through the paces.
Here's the video:
She's been posting on everything from her ferry ride across Guantanamo Bay, to this briefing with a brigadier general, to this most recent post recording how a shipping container with a chilling past has been given a new mission.
But what Google Glass and Carol Rosenberg are really doing in GTMO are testing the limits of the government's policy of secrecy and obfuscation surrounding the upcoming GTMO trials.
Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed's trial is receiving the most scrutiny right now in the ultra-clandestine, CIA-ruled, proceedings. The remote mute button that surprised the senior judge advocate general presiding at motions, as much as anyone else in attendance earlier this year, was just the beginning.
The Sheik's legal proceedings have re-shaped American military jurisprudence and it looks like Rosenberg will continue to meet the government head-on to see what this means at every turn.
Now fully loaded with Google Glass and its on-board video camera, there's no reason to think Carol Rosenberg will do anything soon to endear herself to GTMO command.
When we talked to her in March 2013, Carol was nonplussed by the military's opinion of her and interested only in getting the most accurate details possible out of Cuba.
No reason to think her mission will change anytime soon.