While crediting the Obama administration with better aligning Guantanamo policy to Geneva Convention norms, the Commission largely gave a failing grade to overall U.S. policy. And they are right to do so. Taking a look back at the Commission’s original recommendation, it is clear that outside of some minimal detainee rights, all of which flowed from Supreme Court decisions, the U.S. government has not acted on this recommendation.

Recommendation #11
The original 9/11 Report called for a collaborative approach with other nations to create a uniform structure for detainee rights (see Recommendation #11). Besides putting an end to torture, the Commission also advised the administration to codify detainee policy in order to create a consistent, humane, and internationally viable set of rules that respect the principles of Geneva Convention Article 3 (PDF). Among the Article 3 provisions is a prohibition against “passing of sentences . . . without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized peoples.” Whatever those least-common-denominator judicial guarantees are, prisoners certainly require access to a court to enjoy them. Thus, an obvious staring place for any detainee policy must be habeas corpus entitlement, the right to challenge one’s detention in court.

Habeas corpus: The most basic right
The issue of detainee habeas corpus rights was at the center of numerous Supreme Court cases between 2002 and 2008, culminating in the landmark Boumediene v. Bush decision extending habeas corpus rights to Guantanamo detainees (for more, see my research paper on habeas corpus and post-9/11 cases). Unfortunately, no lasting model for detainee treatment was ever enacted into law, and the Boumediene decision has so far been restricted to Guantanamo, leaving untouched the numerous other offshore U.S. military prisons, like the prison at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan; these remain habeas-free zones where individuals are held indefinitely without trial.

No specific recommendations
The Commission never outlined specific aspects of the policy they advocated creating. According to Lance Cole, whom I interviewed about this topic last year, this was intentional: the Commission “didn’t address a lot of the difficult issues” related to enemy combatants. “At the time,” Cole said, “indefinite detention was assumed to be a temporary issue” and the Commission had no desire to second-guess the president’s prosecution of a then-fresh war. Moreover, it would seem, the kind of “common coalition approach” suggested by the Commission (p. 380), is larger than any one individual prison. So although the Commission doesn’t explicitly name Bagram as a problem, it seems clear that any policy in the spirit of Recommendation #11 must, at a bare minimum, articulate a basis for habeas corpus for any detainee of the United States, anywhere in the world. And yet, ten years later, indefinite detention remains a very real issue, with no coherent policy solution.

F for Effort
Oddly enough, the Commission credits the Obama administration with bringing the U.S. into “compliance with the Geneva Conventions,” while simultaneously pointing to the continued failure of U.S. policy regarding indefinite detention (someone with legal expertise can explain to me how these two assessments aren’t contradictory). The bottom line, though, is the administration has failed to make any real progress toward defining detainee rights. They haven’t simply failed to live up to my expectations of what those rights should be; they have failed at the most basic task put to them by the Commission (and required of them by common sense) by neglecting to create any policy at all.

Abstract: Habeas corpus is the right to challenge one’s detention in a court of law. Prior to 9/11, habeas corpus jurisprudence erected a framework of entitlements that vary according to a person’s location, citizenship, and alleged crimes. Plotted on a timeline of American history, many of the landmark cases that progressively articulated this framework are clustered around wartime, and the entitlement conventions that obtained reflected the terminology of traditional warfare. After 9/11, as the nature of warfare and enemies evolved, and the Executive claimed unprecedented authority to detain enemy combatants, Guantanamo Bay became the extraterritorial detention facility of choice. Beginning in 2004, the Supreme Court responded with a series of cases that created a minimal but definite foundation of habeas corpus entitlement and due process for Guantanamo detainees. This article looks primarily at these post-9/11 cases, the traditional notions of habeas corpus upon which they are predicated, and the possible shortcomings they evidence relative to Guantanamo and to other extraterritorial detention facilities. Full text on SSRN.

Warning: I disclaim any and all expert and non-expert knowledge of all laws of any kind, real or imaginary, especially contract law. Do not, under any circumstances, use this document for any consequential matters. As with everything else on this blog, it is posted for the sole purpose of my own entertainment.

What I’m doing is creating custom window decorations for an instant messenger contact list window. In this case I’m using Empathy. However it should work with any contact list window. In fact, if you make the background the right size, this would work with any window at all! Really? No. Maybe, in theory. I have no idea. Anyway this isn’t a skin, but it might be a step in that direction.

Code after the fold, still very much in development.

Read This:

• While the script is running, it will create a new window that hijacks your existing contact list window. So open the IM client first, then run the script (“python clist_decorate.py”). It might break things. If it does, kill it, then log out and back in, and everything should be fine. Then again, we’ve established that I don’t know what I’m doing, so use this at your own risk.
• You probably need to be running a compositing manager like compiz for this to work. Tested only with Empathy on Ubuntu 10.04 on a fast 64-bit computer.
• The window exists in the widget layer. To drag the window, hold down the alt key.

User-configurable variables are near the top of the script.

• You’ll need to tell the code what the contact list window is called so the code can properly hijack the window: in Empathy it’s “Contact List”; in Pidgin it’s “Buddy List”. The code will preserve the window title so you can adjust opacity settings in compiz.
• Also specify the background image you want to use; here are the iPhone and “base white” backgrounds I’ve made so far. Don’t like those? Make your own. It should be an alpha-blended png the actual size of the contact list you want.
• If you make your own background, edit the height, width, and padding variables as needed. For Empathy, width must be 250 or more else the status selector disappears (that probably varies depending upon what GTK theme you’re using).

To-Do (can you do any of this stuff?)

• Background image scaling
• Error handling
• Can methods in gtk_Box or gtk_Socket control elements of the socketed window such as background color and opacity? Or can we maybe do it with DBus? This seems to be the next step towards a real skin.
• Application icon
• Theme-reading, so all user-configurable variables are in portable XML files

Updates

• 10.30.2010 — New decoration. “Gaia light” (preview, full skin image) adapted from a miranda theme by the same name. Image settings: height 1050, width 250, padding 40, 14, 50, 8.
• 10.30.2010 — New decoration. “Brushed” (preview, full skin image). Image settings: height 1050, width 250, padding 32, 9, 43, 8.

Python Code (or download a Zip file with the backgrounds and code)

import sys, gobject, pango, pygtk, gtk, cairo, gobject, subprocess, re

############################################################################
# CREDITS
############################################################################

# Base code for cairo transparent window shell:
# http://old.nabble.com/cairo-%2B-transparent-png-%2B-XShape-td21225420.html

# The rest of this inexcusable hackery:
# http://j.modjeska.us?p=167

############################################################################
# USER CONFIG
############################################################################

# Background image (needs to be the same size as the final contact list
# until a smart person sorts out scaling):

backgroundimage = 'gaialight.png'

# Window name to be skinned (must be exact match)
winname = 'Contact List'

# Padding adjustment (to situate contact list within skin)

padding_top = 40
padding_right = 14
padding_bottom = 50
padding_left = 8

# (optional) Additional padding depth
extra_padding = 0

# Set window width & height (needs to match background image set above)

clist_w = 250
clist_h = 1000

############################################################################

# Init gtk_socket
socket = gtk.Socket()

# Define the transparent window shell
class clist_window:

	def __init__(self):

		# Init new window, standard settings
		self.window = gtk.Window(gtk.WINDOW_TOPLEVEL)
		self.window.set_events(gtk.gdk.ALL_EVENTS_MASK)

		# Discard window decorations
		self.window.set_decorated(0)

		# Keep window title so you can mess with it in compiz
		self.window.set_title(winname)

		# Size of the final contact list window
		self.window.set_default_size(clist_w, clist_h)

		# Init colors, alpha transparency
		self.window.set_app_paintable(1)
		self.gtk_screen = self.window.get_screen()
		colormap = self.gtk_screen.get_rgba_colormap()
		if colormap == None:
			colormap = self.gtk_screen.get_rgb_colormap()
		gtk.widget_set_default_colormap(colormap)
		if not self.window.is_composited():
			self.supports_alpha = False
		else:
			self.supports_alpha = True

		# Specify window behaviors
		self.window.connect("expose_event", self.expose)
		self.window.connect("destroy", gtk.main_quit)

		# Create vbox (parent) vertical column
		self.vbox = gtk.VBox(False, 0)
		self.top_empty = gtk.VBox(False, extra_padding)
		self.hbox_container = gtk.VBox(False, 0)
		self.bottom_empty = gtk.VBox(False, extra_padding)
		self.window.add(self.vbox)

		# Create hbox horizontal row
		self.hbox_container = gtk.HBox(False, 0)
		self.left_empty = gtk.HBox(False, extra_padding)
		self.socket_embed = gtk.HBox(False, 0)
		self.right_empty = gtk.HBox(False, extra_padding)

		# Populate the hbox with three content areas
		self.hbox_container.pack_start(self.left_empty, False, False, padding_left)
		self.hbox_container.pack_start(self.socket_embed, True, True, 0)
		self.hbox_container.pack_start(self.right_empty, False, False, padding_right)

		# Populate the vbox with three content areas
		self.vbox.pack_start(self.top_empty, False, False, padding_top)
		self.vbox.pack_start(self.hbox_container, True, True, 0)
		self.vbox.pack_start(self.bottom_empty, False, False, padding_bottom)

		# Setup content of empty hboxes
		self.frameh1 = gtk.Fixed()
		self.left_empty.add (self.frameh1)
		self.frameh2 = gtk.Fixed()
		self.right_empty.add (self.frameh2)

		# Setup content of empty vboxes
		self.frame = gtk.Fixed()
		self.top_empty.add (self.frame)
		self.frame2 = gtk.Fixed()
		self.bottom_empty.add (self.frame2)

		# Setup content of hbox socket_embed
		# This is the only part of the grid that does anything
		self.socket_embed.add (socket)

	# Setup window
	def expose (self, widget, event):

		self.ctx = self.window.window.cairo_create()
		self.ctx.save()
		if self.supports_alpha == False:
			self.ctx.set_source_rgb(1, 1, 1)
		else:
			self.ctx.set_source_rgba(1, 1, 1,0)
		self.ctx.set_operator (cairo.OPERATOR_SOURCE)
		self.ctx.paint()
		self.ctx.restore()
		self.ctx.rectangle(event.area.x, event.area.y,
				event.area.width, event.area.height)
		self.ctx.clip()
		self.draw_image(self.ctx,0,0,backgroundimage)

	# Draw the background using source image
	def draw_image(self,ctx,x,y, pix):

		ctx.save()
		ctx.translate(x, y)
		pixbuf = gtk.gdk.pixbuf_new_from_file(pix)
		format = cairo.FORMAT_RGB24
		if pixbuf.get_has_alpha():
			format = cairo.FORMAT_ARGB32

		iw = pixbuf.get_width()
		ih = pixbuf.get_height()
		image = cairo.ImageSurface(format, iw, ih)
		image = ctx.set_source_pixbuf(pixbuf, 0, 0)

		ctx.paint()
		puxbuf = None
		image = None
		ctx.restore()
		ctx.clip()

	# Get window ID of open contact list
	def winid(self):

		proc = subprocess.Popen(['xwininfo', '-int', '-name', winname],
				stdout=subprocess.PIPE,
				)
		stdout_value = proc.communicate()[0]
		getwindowid = re.search("(Window id:)(.+?)(\")", repr(stdout_value))
		winid = int(getwindowid.group(2))

		return winid

	# Display the window
	def show_window(self):

		self.window.show_all()
		while gtk.events_pending():
			gtk.main_iteration()
		self.window.present()
		self.window.grab_focus()
		self.p = 1

if __name__ == "__main__":

	m = clist_window()
	socket.add_id(m.winid())
	m.show_window()
	gtk.main()

Part II: New borders

Judge A. Raymond Randolph wrote for the majority:

Seventeen Chinese citizens currently held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, brought petitions for writs of habeas corpus. … The question is whether [they] are entitled to an order requiring the [US] government to bring them to the United States and release them here.

This opening paragraph of the decision by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals in February of 2009 introduced a document that dramatically altered the fate of those seventeen men. The men had previously been ordered by a lower court to be freed inside the United States, but the Executive branch appealed, saying the lower court had no such authority. Subsequently, the question that Judge Randolph introduced above was answered: no. No, the seventeen men will not be released into the United States, and unlike Jamal Kiyemba, they can not go home because they fear persecution by the Chinese government. There are thirteen of them now; four were released to Bermuda in June. They wait, still at Guantanamo Bay, for the slow wheels of American justice to make one final revolution as their case heads to the Supreme Court.

Probably about the time Judge Randolph was earning his law degree, Adel Noori was born in a far Western Chinese province called Xinjiang. Xinjiang, which literally translated means “new border,” is home to most of the Muslim Uighur ethnic population, including Noori’s wife and daughter. It is not home to Adel Noori however, because he is one of the men asking to be freed from Guantanamo Bay. Judge Randolph continues:

Sometime before September 11, 2001, petitioners left China and traveled to the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan, where they settled in a camp with other Uighurs. … Petitioners fled to Pakistan when U.S. aerial strikes destroyed the Tora Bora camp. … Eventually they were turned over to the U.S. Military, transferred to Guantanamo Bay and detained as “enemy combatants.

Noori went to Kabul, Afghanistan before 9/11. In all likelihood, he was fleeing political persecution in China where, as an outspoken voice of political movements that run contrary to Chinese government policy, he was (and still is) wanted for “political crimes.” So Noori fled, and found himself in Afghanistan when the bombs started falling. As Judge Randolph explains, he then went to Pakistan seeking safety. And so, although their circumstances were dramatically different, Adel Noori and Jamal Kiyemba found themselves in Pakistan for the same reason. Their adopted country of Afghanistan was under attack as the United States sought retribution for an act of terrorism that neither men had anything to do with. Kiyemba and Noori became scapegoats. Like Kiyemba, Noori was handed over to US authorities in exchange for a monetary reward ($7000, according to his lawyer). And like Kiyemba, he was sent to Guantanamo.

Noori and his compatriots didn’t speak the same language as Kiyemba, and it is likely they never even met him. For five years, though, they shared a home, and waited for the bizarre and opaque organs of the US military, executive, and judicial systems to process them. After several years, it was clear to the US government that none of these men were threats to the United States, and that they ought to be released. Lawsuits filed on their behalf sought relief as early as 2005, and because of the similarity of their predicaments, they were consolidated under the Kiyemba umbrella. Thus, when Jamal Kiyemba was released in 2006 (to a country where he was not in danger of persecution), his namesake – Kiyemba v. Bush (later Kiyemba v. Obama) continued its progression through the legal system.

But the Uighur men were stuck. The United States, trying to use 9/11 to justify a war in Iraq, was trading on Americans’ fears. Continued rhetoric about the “dangerous” men at Guantanamo was a political roadblock to releasing even the ones that were known to be innocent. Other countries, not unreasonably, rejected invitations to accept the men, arguing that if they were too dangerous for the US, we had no business trying to export them elsewhere. China, accused of using 9/11 to unjustly label the Uighur independence movement a terrorist organization, would have certainly imprisoned the men if they were released there. Their only true home, Afghanistan, remained a war zone. So they waited.

Then, in 2008, they were freed. The DC District Court, seeing the impossible situation that the United States had created for the men, granted their petition for habeas corpus and directed their release into the United States. An earlier case, Boumediene v. Bush had already set the precedent for detainee habeas rights, and the court seemed to be acting in accordance with that decision. It was the closest thing to old-fashioned Constitutional justice since the war had begun. To many observers, it was a bit of fitting irony that the United States had created for itself a mechanism for importing people who never had any intention of immigration. As the Brennan Center for Justice noted:

They find themselves in their predicament not because they were seeking admission to the United States but because they were forcibly seized and brought to Guantánamo where they have been unlawfully detained for seven years. They are not seeking – nor did they ever seek – to immigrate; they are simply seeking release from their unlawful detention. And they seek that release into the United States because all other options are foreclosed to them.

Unfortunately that justice was short-lived, which brings us back to Judge Randolph. Speaking for the three-judge appellate panel, Randolph explained that no matter how unfair the United States may have been to these prisoners, the Writ of Habeas Corpus is not “compensatory in nature” and that such an unprecedented step as to compel non-citizens to be released onto US soil is entirely inappropriate. The Executive branch, he said, and not the courts, have sole discretion as to who gets to immigrate to the United States. He concluded, “The government has represented that it is continuing diplomatic attempts to find an appropriate country willing to admit petitioners, and we have no reason to doubt that it is doing so. Nor do we have the power to require anything more.”

Adel Noori has seen his share of new borders, but for now those borders remain the narrow boundaries of the Guantanamo prison. Meanwhile, the US government is exploring where the borders of its Executive and Judicial branch powers really are.

Part III: “Trial separation,” will look at the issues that face the President and the Supreme Court in what could be a major separation-of-powers case. There are currently three important questions pending review by the Court (with possibly more to be added on as additional detainee cases pile up), any or all of which could be rendered moot if a suitable relocation scenario is identified by the Executive branch prior to March 2010.

Sources for Part II:

Background information, non-judicial quotation sources, and biographies of the Uighur detainees:

1. “Profiles of Guantanamo Detainees in Need of Safe Haven.” Center for Constitutional Rights. Nov. 2008. 31 Oct. 2009. http://ccrjustice.org/learn-more/reports/profiles-guantanamo-detainees-need-safe-haven.
2. “Adel Noori.” Center for Constitutional Rights. Nov. 2008. 31 Oct. 2009. http://ccrjustice.org/files/Adel%20Noori%20-%202pages_0.pdf.
3. Rosdeitcher, Sidney. “Kiyemba v. Obama: A Mockers of the Rule of Law.” Brennan Center for Justice. 19 Feb. 2009. New York University School of Law. 31 Oct. 2009. http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/archives/kiyemba_v_obama_a_mockery_of_the_rule_of_law/.
4. “China ‘crushing Muslim Uighurs’.” BBC News 12 Apr. 2005. 31 Oct. 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4435135.stm.
5. Miles, Donna. “Bush: Guantanamo Detainees Receiving Humane Treatment.” American Forces Press Service 20 Jun 2005. United States Department of Defense. 31 Oct. 2009. http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=16359.

Legal documents:

1. DC District Court’s habeas decision. See In re Guantanamo Bay Detainee Litig., 581 F. Supp. 2d 33 (D.D.C. 2008). 30 Oct. 2009. http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/hogan-on-gtmo-returns-6-1-09.pdf.
2. DC Circuit Court of Appeals decision reversing the District Court’s habeas ruling: Kiyemba v. Obama. 555 F.3d 1022 (D.C. Cir. 2009). 30 Oct. 2009. http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/opinions/200902/08-5424-1165428.pdf.
3. Petition for Certiorari in the United States Supreme Court: Kiyemba v. Obama. No. 08-1234. 30 Oct. 2009. http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/kiyemba-petition-final-4-6-09.pdf.
4. Boumediene v. Bush. 553 U.S. ___ (2008). 30 Oct. 2009. http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/07pdf/06-1195.pdf.

PART I: Jamal Kiyemba’s long journey home

Jamal Kiyemba doesn’t have anything to do with the case coming before the Supreme Court in 2010. He is a free man; he lives in Uganda, and as well as anyone might expect after what he went though, he is apparently leading a normal life there. But his full-circle journey, one that spanned four continents, is necessary prologue to the legal battle that wages on today under his name.

Kiyemba wasn’t your typical enemy combatant. Raised in a Roman Catholic family just outside of Uganda’s capital city of Kampala, Kiyemba studied at Catholic schools until his late teens. In 1988, as future president and habeas petition respondent Barack Obama was visiting his father’s hometown in Kenya, Kiyemba was probably studying at St. Mary’s College in Kisubi in the country next door. The following year, Kiyemba’s father died in a car accident, and a few years after that Kiyemba joined the rest of his family in London. He continued his studies at Catholic schools, ultimately attending university as a pharmacy student. But along with the opportunity that London offered, he also discovered other temptations that face college students. “I loved partying, going out with girls and drinking,” he told the Ugandan paper Sunday Vision in a 2006 interview, “dividing my time between working and studying became increasingly difficult.” Like so many of us did as young students, Kiyemba took a year off from university to find his way.

What he found was Islam. Over the objections of his family, Kiyemba converted to Islam in 1999, renouncing his former lifestyle, religion, and education. He sought out a place where he could be with other Muslims and where he believed it would be “easier to stay faithful to [his] religion.” That place was supposed to be Afghanistan, but after the 9/11 attacks, Kiyemba opted instead for the relative safety of Pakistan, where he joined the Taliban, believing it would help him find solidarity with other Muslims. His plan was to locate a place to settle until the war was over; Afghanistan remained his ultimate goal. Safety was not to be found, however, and later in 2001 Pakistani officials, motivated perhaps by a $5000-per-person reward offered for any suspected Taliban member, captured Kiyemba and handed him over to US authorities. Within a year, Kiyemba was shackled and jailed at Guantanamo Bay where he would remain for the next four years.

According to his 2006 statements, Kiyemba was repeatedly tortured at Guantanamo, witnessed the torture of others, and underwent hours of interrogation every day under grueling conditions. In 2005, he was part of a hunger strike protesting the conditions at Guantanamo. He says he eventually confessed to terrorist activities as a result of the torture and threats by the military guards.

Kiyemba was ultimately released following a Department of Defense Administrative Review Board hearing in early 2006. The US had intended to return him to his country of residence, England, but he was denied entry there and he returned to Uganda in April 2006.

In 2005, as Jamal Kiyemba sat shackled in his cell at Guantanamo, uncertain of whether he would be imprisoned for another day or for the rest of his life, his lawyer filed a petition for habeas corpus challenging his detention as unlawful. The petition itself was only one among many filed on behalf of detainees at the military camp and in that context it is unimportant; Kiyemba was released pursuant to the 2006 ARB hearing and his legal standing evaporated. Because of some procedural detail of the American legal system, however, Jamal Kiyemba’s name remains in the headlines of the highly public legal battle that began as Kiyemba v. Bush and which sits now on the desks of the nine justices of the Supreme Court of the United States under its new name: Kiyemba v. Obama.

Part II: “New borders,” will look at the thirteen Chinese Uighur men who remain imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay and who carry on the Kiyemba legacy. With no viable options for deportation or repatriation, they await a US government separation-of-powers showdown that will determine their fate.

Sources for Part I:

Jamal Kiyemba, biographical details and interviews:

1. Allio, Emily. “Uganda frees Al qaeda suspect.” The New Vision (Uganda) 18 Apr. 2006: 1. 30 Oct. 2009. http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/493664.
2. “Jamal Abdullah Kiyemba.” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 7 Aug 2009, 10:32 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 30 Oct. 2009. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamal_Abdullah_Kiyemba.
3. “How I ended up in Guantanamo.” Sunday Vision (Uganda) 2 Apr. 2006: SR. 30 Oct. 2009. http://www.sundayvision.co.ug/detail.php?mainNewsCategoryId=7&newsCategoryId=132&newsId=490641.
4. Lewis, Jason. “I confessed to escape Guantanamo torture.” The Daily Mail 19 Feb. 2006. 30 Oct. 2009. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-377623/I-confessed-escape-Guantanamo-torture.html.

Legal documents:

1. Jamal Kiyemba’s Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus: Kiyemba et al v. Bush et al., Case # 1:05-cv-01509-RMU in the U.S. District Court of Washington, DC. 30 Oct. 2009. http://www.pegc.us/archive/Kiyemba/docket.txt.

Update 11.19.2010: Now with EXIF! (maybe)

Caveats/Notes:

• This works for the thickbox effect. I don’t know if will work for other effects.
• Directly editing the PHP files of plugins may cause problems when you update WordPress or the plugin itself. Do so at your own risk.
• The bold tags look great, but I’m not sure how compatible they are; your mileage may vary.
• Successfully tested on Firefox, IE8, Chrome (webkit).

PHP Code: Step 1
Find this code in wp-content/plugins/nextgen-gallery/view/gallery.php (line 38 in unmodified original version 1.3.5):

	
	<?php foreach ($images as $image) : ?>

Add the following code after the lines above:

    <?php
    // BEGIN HACK

      // Case if description present
      if ( strlen($image->description) > 1 )
      { 

        // NEW EXIF hack  (11.19.10)
           require_once(NGGALLERY_ABSPATH . '/lib/meta.php');
           $meta = array();
           $pdata = new nggMeta($image->path);
        // End EXIF hack 

        $newdesc = "" . $image->alttext .
        "" . " :: " . $image->description;

       // 11.19.10 -- append some EXIF data
         $newdesc .= " (" . substr($pdata->get_date_time(),0,10) . ")";
       // end append EXIF

      } 

      // Case if no description
      else {
        $newdesc = "" . $image->alttext . "";
      }

    // END HACK
    ?>

PHP Code: Step 2

Replace the following line (line 42):

          <a href="<?php echo $image->imageURL ?>"
          title="<?php echo $image->description ?>"
          <?php echo $image->thumbcode ?> >

With this:

          <a href="<?php echo $image->imageURL ?>"
          title="<?php echo $newdesc ?>"
          <?php echo $image->thumbcode ?> >

Explanation:
thickbox.js, a WordPress include, is the javascript that generates the image popup for NextGEN’s thickbox effect. It gets its information from the thumbnail href in the gallery and uses that information to populate picture data in the popup’s caption area beneath the picture. Specifically, the picture’s description is pulled from the title attribute of the image’s a tag which is, in turn, generated in gallery.php by the code above. Unmodified, the code only pulls the description, which you can set in the gallery manager area. By adding this code, you’re prepending the image name to the description and passing that to thickbox.js via the thumbnail title text. If no description is present, only the image title is passed to thickbox.

You can see how the new variable $newdesc can be manipulated to include any other data you want. For example, you could also append exif data and image size by appending $exif['created_timestamp'] and $image->size to $newdesc. To see what information is available to you, add the PHP function <?php var_dump($image) ?> inside the foreach loop and it will output all of the attributes of each image.

EXIF Update 11.19.2010:
After some messing around, I’ve sorted out a way to access the EXIF data, since the method provided by the developer doesn’t work. Let me know how this goes for you. The new code required to add EXIF data is now included above. The sample EXIF data I appended to $newdesc on line 18 is the date information. Here is the key for other data:

• title: $pdata->get_META(‘title’)
• caption: $pdata->get_META(‘caption’)
• keywords: $pdata->get_META(‘keywords’)
• timestamp: $pdata->get_date_time()
• date stamp only: substr($pdata->get_date_time(),0,10)

Feel free to share any improvements, limitations, etc. in the comments.