Despite earlier indications that there would be a release of detainee photos, President Obama has ordered that the photos been withheld in defiance of a judicial ruling. I discussed the development on this segment of the Rachel Maddow Show.
The Defense Department was set to release hundreds of photographs showing alleged abuse of prisoners in detention facilities in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, the White House has announced that the President has yielded to demands to withhold the pictures, citing the safety of U.S. troops are the reason — the very same reason given by the Bush Administration.
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs stated “the president reflected on this case and believes that they have the potential to pose harm to the troops. … Nothing is added by the release of the photos.” Well, there is that transparency in government thing. There is also showing the world that we are going to come to grips and take responsibility for our actions. It is hard to accept responsibility for acts that you will not disclose to the public. The value is to show that the United States will not hide its abuses or hide from its responsibility.
The Administration also ignores that enemies already have sufficient photos for recruiting. What they also have is the argument that we are a nation of hypocrites who engage in torture when it suits us — only to resist investigation of those war crimes. Concealing our abuse of detainees only reaffirms this message.
Obama’s comments come directly from the Second Circuit opinion rejecting the very arguments that he made in the press conference. The court rejected the attempt to use FOIA as “an all-purpose damper on global controversy.” Obama himself pledged in January not to allow agencies to withhold material under FOIA that would embarrass the government. To add insult to injury, he also said that the release might interfere with “future investigations” — like the investigation his administration has blocked into torture.
Here is the Second Circuit opinion, acluvdod_photodecision
For the full story, click here.
Obama gives new life to the FOIA
A transformative directive ordering compliance with the Freedom of Information Act marks bureaucracy’s return to scrutiny.
January 23, 2009
In October 2001, the Bush administration took an administrative action that would prove sadly symptomatic of its rule. John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, issued a memorandum warning against casual release of information to the public under the Freedom of Information Act. Such releases, Ashcroft said, should be made “only after full and deliberate consideration of the institutional, commercial and personal privacy interests that could be implicated.” In case anyone missed the point, Ashcroft added that any bureaucrat who said no to such a request could “be assured that the Department of Justice will defend your decisions unless they lack a sound legal basis.” It goes without saying that Ashcroft did not promise any such defense of government employees who released information under the terms of the act.
If cavalier disregard of the law and the public’s right to hold its government accountable were hallmarks of the recently departed administration, we can only hope that President Obama’s response signals a new approach. One of his first presidential acts was to issue a memo to federal agencies on the Freedom of Information Act. It opens by quoting former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis’ pronouncement that sunlight is the “best of disinfectants” and continues by trumpeting the act as “the most prominent expression of a profound national commitment to ensuring an open government.” Where Ashcroft searched for excuses to withhold information, Obama directed all agencies to “adopt a presumption” in favor of releasing it.
That is a transformation of incalculable significance. It alerts agencies that they must use their offices to inform, even when what’s revealed is embarrassing, not to shield or deflect. Moreover, it reverses the disastrous example that the Bush policies set for state and local governments. In Los Angeles and elsewhere, officials used concerns about security as a pretext to retreat from accountability, inhibiting scrutiny of police accused of misconduct and cloaking the salaries of public officials, among other dubious acts of secrecy.
The tension between a free society and a powerful government will never disappear entirely. But Obama’s prompt action on the Freedom of Information Act restores balance to that debate. It should remind officials throughout the land that they must answer first to the public.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-foia23-2009jan23,0,4722159.story
And this story about the photos pushes this story about the vote on credit card reform off the news:
Story:
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/senate-rejects-limit-on-credit-card-interest-rates/?partner=rss&emc=rss
Vote breakdown:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00191
If people like me have ever had to fight transparency and accountability in government by requesting numerous documents through FOIA requests and the State Public Records requests, then you understand my outrage of what Obama has done here. Once he signed a document recently stating his pledge of openness with FOIA I forwarded the message to many NGOs and I praised the man for finally reversing Bush’s secrecy. Obama is a pathetic liar.
his here from an OT posting/response elsewhere since this is the approiate thread. I should have just waited and trusted that Prof. Turley would get the breaking news up:
alex
1, May 12, 2009 at 6:48 pm
“Obama to reverse decision on releasing new Abu Ghraib
photos?”
He sure did.
The network news is on and some news anchor attributed the decision to not wanting to inflame the public or put our troops in more danger.
This to me isn’t about limiting damage IMO, it’s determining where the damage will fall. This issue poisons the Justice Department, the Intelligence Community, the relationship between Congress and those communities and various Departments and the relationship between the Executive/Congress and the citizens.
This is the defining test for this generation regarding the rule of law. The political carnage that comes from a full investigation would be massive but that’s a lesser effect than a failure to release the photos and documents and proceed with a full investigation.
A failure to proceed would cut the heart out of the country’s self image and projection to the world that we maintain some persuasive level of moral leadership. It would also damp down, if not entirely curdle the re-newed pride and hope a large segment of the electorate went to the polls to validate. Lastly IMO, it would validate the appearance of a two-tier system of justice.
Yes Dredd, I agree that part of this is about torture.
I think this signals an unwillingness to prosecute for war crimes and torture crimes.
If they are not going to prosecute, then releasing the photos would have been like poking a stick in the eye of the world.
We would be saying see what we did … but we are not going to prosecute those who did it.
Bob Dylan said “they are narrowing the distance between right and wrong” …
I am a retired servicemember (US Navy). I concur with the President’s decision. Why? These new photos will provide no value. We all know what happened: American military members abused, degraded and tortured Iraqis and others in their custody. Personally, I think releasing these photos without any earnest efforts to prosecute all involved would merely re-ignite anti-American sentiments in many countries, including Afganistan and Pakistan.
Oh, Kelly ann, until you have something sane AND credible to contribute, why don’t you leave your elephant shit over at redstate or townhall.
In this instance, Mr. Obama is once again a naive, inconsistent coward.
Yes, like some others here, I am a veteran and my brother was killed in the Viet Nam Conflict.
Obama is engaged in a cover-up of Bush’s torture that is worse than this instance of non-disclosure. In Glenn Greenwald’s paraphrase, he has said to Britain, “if your court describes the torture to which one of your residents was subjected while in U.S. custody, we will withhold information from you that could enable you to break up terrorist plots aimed at your citizens.” http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/12/obama/index.html
Britain ought to call his bluff and release the information. Some of it is known, such as that the U.S. sliced the man’s genitals with a scalpel. http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/09/mohamed-torture-uk-us/. What could be motivating Obama? I’m not satisfied with my suggestion in a comment above that he’s doing it to get conservative support for the 2012 election.
Not releasing the photos only show that this administration is no different than the old, I believe releasing the photos would show a change in police and strengthen our position overseas.
Alert the media! The executives of three of the largest news outlets in the world do not agree with kelly ann’s editorial judgment! Massive conspiracy! Extra! Extra!
ABC, CBS and NBC have said nothing about the Speaker’s shifting stories, or the potential hypocrisy of her once supporting (or at least not objecting to) policies that she would later condemn as illegal “torture.”
The current round of stories began April 22, after the Obama administration released selected memos from the Bush administration on the legal limits to interrogation. That night, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell offered a brief mention of how Pelosi was one of those who had been told: “Members of Congress were briefed at the time and reportedly didn’t dissent, including intelligence committee leaders Nancy Pelosi, Porter Goss, Bob Graham and Richard Shelby.” ABC and CBS said nothing about Pelosi that night.
The next day, Pelosi wagged her finger as she denied ever being told that waterboarding was being used against al Qaeda terrorists: “We were not — I repeat, were not — told that waterboarding or any of these other enhanced interrogation methods were used. What they did tell us is that they had…[legal] opinions that they could be used, but not that they would.”
That contradicted what Mitchell reported the previous night, but neither NBC nor the other networks provided any updates.
Last week, the CIA released documents showing that one of Pelosi’s top aides went to a briefing in 2003 where he heard that waterboarding was actually being used. The May 9 Washington Post explained:
A top aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attended a CIA briefing in early 2003 in which it was made clear that waterboarding and other harsh techniques were being used in the interrogation of an alleged al-Qaeda operative, according to documents the CIA released to Congress on Thursday.
Pelosi has insisted that she was not directly briefed by Bush administration officials that the practice was being actively employed. But Michael Sheehy, a top Pelosi aide, was present for a classified briefing that included Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), then the ranking minority member of the House intelligence committee, at which agency officials discussed the use of waterboarding on terrorism suspect Abu Zubaida.
A Democratic source acknowledged yesterday that it is almost certain that Pelosi would have learned about the use of waterboarding from Sheehy….
Senior [CIA] officials have chafed at criticism of their interrogation activities from lawmakers who, when made aware of the programs over past years, mostly did not object. One former senior agency official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the substance of the briefings is classified, said some lawmakers, after being told of the enhanced techniques, “questioned whether we were doing enough.”
Again, no coverage from ABC, CBS and NBC.
On Tuesday, CNN reported confirmation that Pelosi had indeed been told by Sheehy about the waterboarding in 2003: “A source close to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now confirms that Pelosi was told in February 2003 by her intelligence aide, Michael Sheehy, that waterboarding was actually used on CIA detainee Abu Zubaydah.”
Again — you guessed it — no coverage from ABC, CBS and NBC.
There is only one reason why Obama is now reversing himself on the harsh interrogation photos and that is impeachment.
There is no question that as most assuredly American soldiers and perhaps Americans themselves were killed as a result of Obama releasing these photos; that would be a high crime and in direct violation of the oath he swore to on January 21, 2009.
I am sure his personal attorney pointed out that all it would take is an accusation of just a single soldier’s death as a result of his decision to release the photo’s and when Democrats lose a large number of seats in Congress in 2010 (they for sure will at this rate) he could be the subject of a Congressional investigation and possible impeachment trial in the House!
There have been numerous stories about Pelosi’s hypocrisy about torture on those networks. Stop lying.
Stewart Skewers Pelosi On What She Knew and When She Knew It
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/05/13/stewart-skewers-pelosi-what-she-knew-when-she-knew-it
ABC, CBS and NBC Ignore Pelosi’s Torture Hypocrisy.
Nothing new with that is there. They wonder why Fox is the fastest growing news network now?
Hey trolls, keep on telegraphing the fears of your masters. Thanks!
Hey lefties, did ya ever think the reason he decided not to release them is because most Americans would look at them and say “what’s the problem”!
Good LORD help us survive this ninny we have for a President as a result of just 4% of the dumbest Americans voting for him instead of McCain because Obama was going to give them something for nothing.
A lot of trolls right on cue. Thank you for letting us know your masters are actually afraid of information on war crimes being released to the public. It’s amazing to see the many ways each troll has chosen to approach discrediting anyone who thinks the photos should be released and war crimes investigated.