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Obama Signs Law Authorizing Suppression of Torture Photos
Among other things in the Homeland Security appropriations bill President Obama signed into law on Wednesday is a provision that authorizes the Defense Department to continue to conceal photos of the torture and abuse of detainees by U.S. forces. The American Civil Liberties Union had specifically sought those photos, and sued to get them, among other documents relating to detainee abuse, in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. The exemption signed, however, is much broader than simply the photos sought in the lawsuit. It would apply to any other photos taken between Sept. 11, 2001 and Jan.22, 2009 that the Secretary of Defense has certified would, if released, endanger U.S. citizens, servicemen, or employees overseas.
President Obama initially agreed to release the photos, but changed his mind after consulting with Defense Secretary Robert Gates and others at the Pentagon, who warned the photos would endanger U.S. servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two federal courts have already heard and rejected that argument, however, ruling that the Freedom of Information Act can’t be trumped by citing unspecified dangers to unspecified potential targets of the anger that the information may produce. The government has appealed that ruling to the Supreme Court.
The bill signed Wednesday is an effort to get around those court rulings, and to prevent a similar ruling from the high court.
Still, it’s not clear if passage of the new law will necessarily moot the pending court case. The lawyers could still try to challenge the new legislation or the Pentagon’s right to invoke it.
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10 Comments so far
Show AllObama will certainly have one term to extent the Bush?Cheney nazi regime dictatorship. Why does Obama hate democrats as much as Bush and Cheney? Is it because they are stuffing his off shore bank account as they
did theirs?
I want to hear WHY Dennis Kucinich, Bernie Sanders, Russ Feingold, and other "progressives" voted in favor of this bill.
HR 2892
obama will respond after he climbs out from under the desk
of the big guys at the pentagon takes off his knee pads
straightens out his tie and gargles. response at 11!
i'm not trying to be funny this what he does time after
time. obama assembly required spine not included!
obama will respond after he climbs out from under the desk
of the big guys at the pentagon takes off his knee pads
straightens out his tie and gargles. response at 11!
i'm not trying to be funny this what he does time after
time. obama assembly required spine not included!
Very astute of Sec. Gates and "others" at the Pentagon to note that the release of the photos of their torture victims might endanger US servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Do they really imagine that the secret deeds of their hired sadists and psychopaths are still unknown to the familes and countrymen of their victims? How perceptive! Surely the whole world knows what horrors have been done in the name of the world's largest democracy, even if the US is still in self-righteous denial! Nothing has changed.
How appropriate that Obama like Bush II is willing to give the lives of U.S. service people for a lie, but will not sacrifice U.S. service people for the truth. Has America become a nation of liars willing to risk the lives of U.S. citizens to propragate lies. I always thought that America stood for truth.
The imperial stormtroopers prefer bold, strong slogans, like "Death from Above".
An honest slogan like "We Cover Our Tracks!" probably wouldn't go over so well.
· Yr Obd't Servant
My general rule of thumb is: If what you are doing can't take the scutiny of the light of day, you probably should not be doing it in the first place.
How convenient is it for a government to pass a law that hides the evidence of its Crimes Against Humanity? What does the Geneva Convention say about this kind of track covering?
"The only means of strengthening one's intellect is to make up one's mind about nothing, to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts." - John Keats