Link (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080602/wl_nm/security_usa_detention_dc)
Snippet:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has been secretly detaining terrorism suspects aboard floating "prison ships," a British legal charity charged on Monday, but the Pentagon described the report as inaccurate.

The charity Reprieve, citing sources including U.S. military officials, parliamentary bodies and former prisoners, said it believed the U.S. government had operated as many as 17 shipboard prisons, particularly in the Indian Ocean region.

"Prisoners have been interrogated under tortuous conditions before being rendered to other, often undisclosed locations," Reprieve said, adding that it would issue a detailed report later this year. Hmm, it will be interesting to see if there is any truth to this. According to the article the government has admitting to transferring prisoners to ships before for interrogation, so it would not surprise me to hear that the practice is more wide-spread than officials are admitting. IIRC, this was the same cat-and-mouse game we played with "dark prisons" a few years back.

What, they ran out of room at Gitmo?

Harder for bleeding-heart liberals to find you if you're on a boat, I suppose.

Easier deniability and harder to get a court order for a specific location since there is none, however is kind of stupid because in international waters the U.S. must observe maritime law. Is keelhauling legal under maritime law?

Is keelhauling legal under maritime law?

Articles seem to indicate it's not, but not really knowing where to find and search maritime law, I can't find anything other than the Dutch were really the only ones to do it and that ended in the mid 1800's.

Easier deniability and harder to get a court order for a specific location since there is none, however is kind of stupid because in international waters the U.S. must observe maritime law. Is keelhauling legal under maritime law?
I'm not sure if int'l law applies even then since it's a USN vessel and not civilian. I think on board a Navy vessel you're floating on your own little bit of the US, but someone like JediAthos would know more about that. I could well be wrong on this.