In 2006 I was hired by US military lawyers to do courtroom sketches, but not for any media purposes; the sketches were going away presents for some of the lawyers after the trial was over.

It was the trial for "The King of Torture" at Ft, Bliss in El Paso, TX. This trial was closed to the media and I cannot talk about the details of the 10 hours of this thing I sat through, or else I would be prosecuted as a whistleblower.

The thing that stands out to me as " I should not have seen this" is the fact that the media wasn't allowed into this controversial torture trial and I had to pass a "background check" to be let onto base. I have felonies on my record and was worried I wouldn't be allowed to go do this job I was hired for, but they let me in and told me (roughly) "Don't talk about this trial. You can say you were here, but that's all. If you talk to the media or anyone about this and we find out, you will be prosecuted by the military for endangering national security."

They essentially let a multiple felon and anti war activist into a secretive military torture trial for 10 hours (over 2 days) and their "security" was the honor system with a dash of threat. Later, I found out that all of my communication with the military from this time (negotiations over the job and some photos of lawyers and drawings of lawyers) were all deleted from my Hotmail account.

During the 2008 election when everyone was arguing about waterboarding, I really wanted to open my mouth about all the other things I heard in that courtroom in 2006.