By Nathan Freed Wessler, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 6:21pm
Today Andrew Rosenthal of The New York Timespublished a thoughtful column discussing the untenable position taken by the government in response to the ACLU's two Freedom of Information Act lawsuits seeking information about the CIA's targeted killing drone strike program, including its targeting of U.S. citizens. As Rosenthal explains, "the government is blocking any consideration of these petitions with one of the oldest, and most pathetic, dodges in the secrecy game. It says it cannot confirm or deny the existence of any drone strike policy or program."
By Anna Estevao, National Security Project at 1:21pm
A Polish investigation into CIA black sites has made a meaningful step towards accountability for torture. Zbigniew Siematkowski, former chief of Polish intelligence services, has reportedly been charged with "unlawful deprivation of liberty" and "corporal punishment" against prisoners of war for facilitating the CIA's torture of terror suspects in Poland. Jameel Jaffer, ACLU Deputy Legal Director, had this reaction:
By Nathan Freed Wessler, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 4:29pm
Today, nine organizations submitted a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking records about the CIA's use of drones to carry out targeted killings around the world. The organizations work on a diverse array of issues that don't always overlap, including international human rights and rule of law, government transparency, investigative journalism, civil liberties and national security policy. Although some of these groups seldom have occasion to collaborate, they joined together to urge the court to reject the CIA's position that it can't confirm whether it has a drone strike program at all.
By Alexander Abdo, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 12:59pm
The government has just officially confirmed what we've long suspected: there are secret Justice Department opinions about the Patriot Act's Section 215, which allows the government to get secret orders from a special surveillance court (the FISA Court) requiring Internet service providers and other companies to turn over "any tangible things." Just exactly what the government thinks that phrase means remains to be seen, but there are indications that their take on it is very broad.
By Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU at 6:09pm
"Contrary to core principles of American democracy." That's how two U.S. senators describe the Justice Department's refusal to release a secret legal interpretation of the Patriot Act.
Last year, we filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for records about the government's use and interpretation of one of the Patriot Act's most controversial provisions: Section 215. Some members of the Senate Intelligence Committee had suggested that the provision was being abused. "When the American people find out how their government has secretly interpreted the Patriot Act," Colorado Sen. Mark Udall said, "they will be stunned and they will be angry."
By Nathan Freed Wessler, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 3:17pm
Today the ACLU filed its appeal brief in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking records about the CIA's use of drones to carry out targeted killings around the world. Like in our separate FOIA case seeking information about the legal and factual basis for the targeted killing of U.S. citizens, the CIA takes the position in this lawsuit that it can neither confirm nor deny whether it has a drone strike program at all. This is despite the fact that the Departments of Defense, State, and Justice all responded that they do in fact have documents on the program. As we told the court today, the CIA's position is simply untenable.
By Alexander Abdo, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project & Mitra Ebadolahi, Legal Fellow, ACLU National Security Project at 1:45pm
On Friday, the ACLU appeared before the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in New York to argue that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requires the CIA to release documents describing its use of waterboarding. The simple question at the heart of the hearing was this: is waterboarding an "intelligence method" that can be protected from disclosure under FOIA? We argued that the answer — of course not — is easy because even the president himself has declared that waterboarding is illegal. Exposing official misconduct to public scrutiny is the chief purpose of FOIA. But it cannot serve that purpose if even officially confirmed illegality is protectable.
In November 2005, U.S. marines in Iraq were involved in the killing of 24 civilians—including women and children. Shortly after the story became public, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all documents related to the incident and other civilian casualties of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although we received thousands of documents in response, the government did not give us a single document relating specifically to the killings at Haditha.
