SLTrib column: "freedom's heroes" for 2004

Tribune Media Services columnist Robyn Blumner offers "those individuals deserving of special praise for protecting our nation's liberty" in 2004. Among them:

* "Army Spc. Joseph Darby, a reservist in the 372nd Military Police Co...the soldier who sparked the formal investigations into the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq";

* "Frank Dunham Jr...federal public defender for the Eastern District of Virginia, who has spent years vigorously defending terror suspects Yaser Hamdi and Zacarias Moussaoui from efforts by the Justice Department to strip his clients of many if not all of their constitutional rights"; and

* "the group of military attorneys who objected in the U.S. Supreme Court to the lack of fairness and legitimacy of the military tribunal system established by President Bush... These uniformed officers stood forcefully against the administration's claims that the Guantanamo prisoners should be denied the ability to challenge the legality of their imprisonment in federal court."