American Civil Liberties Union

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.

Two years ago, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had no idea how many immigration detainees had died on its watch. Yes, you read that right. In 2009, DHS had simply lost track of the number of immigrants who had died in the detention centers that it operates. It wasn’t until the ACLU brought a lawsuit under the Freedom of Information Act that the government finally launched an investigation to uncover the real death toll.

This morning, we filed a lawsuit to enforce our April 2009 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for information about Bagram detainees. We're looking for basic information, such as how many people are imprisoned at Bagram, who they are, how long they’ve been detained, and where and under what circumstances they were captured. We are also requesting records about the rules and policies that govern Bagram detentions, the process for prisoners to challenge their detention, and the conditions of confinement. So far, the agencies we requested the information from—the Departments of Justice, State, Defense and the CIA—have been less than forthcoming.