NEW YORK - September 30 - Attorneys with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) lauded the landmark decision issued today by federal district court Judge Alvin Hellerstein that ordered the Department of Defense to release hundreds of photographs and videotapes of abuse in Iraq that the DOD has attempted to withhold from the public. The ruling was in the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation brought by CCR and other civil rights groups to compel the United States Government to produce relevant documents concerning the treatment, torture, death, and rendition of detainees in U.S. custody.

The court’s decision came after four days of argument and many briefs submitted by the parties on a number of key questions regarding the treatment of detainees in Guantánamo and Iraq, including the use of interrogation techniques in the war on terror that constitute torture under the U.S. Constitution and international law, President Bush’s authorization of the creation of CIA detention centers around the world and the use of unlawful interrogation techniques at those centers, and the CIA’s actions in hiding prisoners in detention facilities as “ghost detainees.”

The Court, addressing the CIA’s claim that national security prevented the agency from admitting or denying the existence of documents discussing authorized interrogation methods and the creation of secret foreign detention centers, stated that the discussion of these issues in the press indicated that the purpose of the CIA’s refusal was not to protect intelligence activities but rather to conceal “possible violations of the law in the treatment of prisoners” or other embarrassing acts of the agency. As a result, the Court ruled that that:

• The CIA must admit to the existence of a memorandum from the Department of Justice to the CIA interpreting the Convention Against Torture and either produce it or explain its reasons for withholding the document; and
  
  
• The DOD must produce hundreds of additional photographs and videos depicting the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Barbara Olshansky, Deputy Legal Director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, and an attorney working on CCR’s Guantánamo litigation, stated that she “cheered the Court’s decision because it is so clearly addresses the dangerous results of secrecy in a democracy. Secrecy prevents the people from holding their leaders accountable for their actions.”

CCR Legal Director Bill Goodman said, “The judge adhered to the basic democratic principles built into the Freedom of Information Act. Namely, that only an informed public can intelligently decide whether its government is doing a good or a bad job.”

The FOIA litigation was brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights together with the American Civil Liberties Union, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense, and Veterans for Peace and charged the Department of Defense and other government agencies with illegally withholding from the public records concerning the abuse of detainees in American military custody.

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