CIA Refuses to Hand Over Torture Tape Documents
Yesterday, we received word that CIA Director Leon Panetta had filed documents in federal court arguing that the agency cannot release documents related to the destruction of 92 videotapes depicting the harsh interrogation of prisoners in U.S. custody overseas. The CIA disclosed back in March that it has a list of roughly 3,000 summaries, transcripts, reconstructions and memoranda relating to 92 interrogation videotapes that were destroyed by the agency. In April, a federal judge rejected the CIA's attempt to withhold these records.
In yesterday's filings, Panetta argues that the documents contain information about the actual implementation of "enhanced interrogation techniques," as opposed to abstract information about the techniques such as that included in Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memos released earlier this year. Director Panetta also argued that the release of this information could be used as "ready-made" propaganda by our enemies.
Alex Abdo, a fellow with the ACLU National Security Project said in a statement today:
The CIA's withholding of documents because they might be used as propaganda would justify the greatest governmental suppression of the worst governmental misconduct. If we accept the CIA's rationale, the government could, for example, suppress any document discussing torture, Abu Ghraib or Guantánamo Bay. Certain governmental information must of course remain classified for security reasons, but terrorists should not have a veto power over what the public is allowed to know about governmental misconduct.The ACLU is seeking disclosure of these records as part of its pending motion to hold the CIA in contempt for destroying the tapes, which violated a court order requiring it to produce or identify records responsive to the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act for records relating to the treatment of prisoners held in U.S. custody overseas. The government continues to withhold the documents in their entirety and argues that not even one sentence of the documents can be made public.
Jun 9th, 2009 at 5:28pm
DOCUMENTS TO REVEAL COVERT IRRADIATION OF GITMO DETAINEES -- ALONG WITH UNJUSTLY 'TARGETED' AMERICANS?
The documents most likely would reveal that the U.S. government has used silent, injury- and illness-inducing microwave radiation "directed energy weapons", in the words of the Senate Armed Services Committee report, to induce weakness, exhaustion, and sleep deprivation...
...a silent, "slow-kill" irradiation, atrocities on a par with what the Nazis did to concentration camp prisoners.
(Is THAT why they called it "Camp X-Ray?)
And these "directed energy weapons" CONTINUE to be used by government-funded and equipped operatives at home to degrade the lives of unjustly "targeted" U.S. citizens and their families -- with the full knowledge of U.S. military, security and law enforcement officials.
Mr. Panetta and Mr. Gates, the truth is coming out, with or without your acquiescence.
http://nowpublic.com/world/gestapo-usa-govt-funde d-vigilante-network-terrorizes-america
Jun 10th, 2009 at 5:27am
ACLU (All Communist Living United). They
are useless.
Jun 10th, 2009 at 10:09am
The ACLU is getting this one wrong. You are totally obsessed with this whole horribly ugly sequence of American history, which has been covered ad nauseum for all to see. Torture is not just any government misconduct. It is both especially egregious and an extraordinary motivator for revenge against all Americans, not just the torturers. One of the primary arguments against torture even by the military has been that it virtually guarantees reciprocal outrages that endanger the country.
So the ACLU wants us to see encore after encore of these grotesque events until what? U.S. citizens are kidnapped and tortured back? The country is attacked by new cadres of ultra-inflamed America haters? Our troops never come home because radical Islamic recruiters have a steady supply of fresh horrors to download from their computers to motivate their adolescent warriors?
This is crazy and bizarrely provocative, a national equivalent of "yelling fire in a crowded theater." I've supported the ACLU for many years with my hard-earned money, but you've gone over the top on a subject that needed and received solid reporting but not in hourly, never-ending doses. And that's exactly where we're headed if the ACLU prevails.
Jun 10th, 2009 at 1:56pm
What makes you people think that the Muslem world doesn't already know about the Methods used by the C.I.A.?
Btw Phuque if you spelled your tag with an o rather than a u you would have the French word for seal which also barks in an annoying manner.
Jun 11th, 2009 at 1:07pm
Lets see..
I break the law "legally."
Then I break the law violating a court order.
Then I argue if I show you evidence of my breaking the law "legally" it will enable terrorists who already know I broke the law to say I broke the law.
And that will enable terrorists to show the world that already knows I broke the law, that I broke the law.
Which will convince new recruits that already know I broke the law to join a terrorist group that has inflamed these new recruit folks with evidence that I broke the law that they already know about.
Guess what they know we broke the law and tortured folks because the head of the CIA is saying so to justify his not turning over the documents that show we broke the law!!!
Jun 12th, 2009 at 9:48am
Yes, lets release those pictures, along with all the photos of abortions. I want to see the bits and peices of dead babies. I want to see it in all it's glory. I want to see the smashed heads and little limbs. Come on, lets do it, I am panting with the excitement of it all. What, you are offended?????? It's the same damn thing you bunch of morons. Let this go. Stop it now. We don't need photos of this type of thing. The ACLU is WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!!! Find a better fight to fight. I have lost all respect for your organization.
Jun 12th, 2009 at 2:14pm
Kelly...Level with us. Did you ever had any respect for the ACLU?
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