June, 02 2017, 03:30pm EDT
ACLU Statement on Trump Administration Effort to Bury CIA Torture Report
The Trump administration is having at least two federal agencies give their copies of the Senate's CIA torture report back to the Senate, according to a report by The New York Times.
WASHINGTON
The Trump administration is having at least two federal agencies give their copies of the Senate's CIA torture report back to the Senate, according to a report by The New York Times.
"It would be a travesty for agencies to return the CIA torture report instead of reading and learning from it, as senators intended," said Hina Shamsi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project. "The landmark investigative report documents horrific abuses and details of CIA lies to the White House, Congress, the courts, and the public about its torture program. This critically important investigation should have been made public and must not be buried or destroyed."
The report on the CIA's Bush-era detention and torture program documents the abuse of dozens of prisoners and finds that the CIA lied about the torture program to Congress, the White House, and the public. In December 2014, at the request of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the Obama administration released the 524-page executive summary, but the full 6,000-plus page report remains classified.
The ACLU fought a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking to make the full report public, but the case was dismissed, and in April the Supreme Court declined to consider it. In seeking Supreme Court review, the ACLU had described the risk that the report might be returned to the Senate and never see the light of day.
In December 2014, the Senate Intelligence Committee sent the full report to several executive branch agencies, including the Departments of Justice, Defense, and State, as well as to the CIA itself. The chairman of the committee at the time, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), asked that the full report be made available within the executive branch in order to learn from the mistakes of the past to ensure that they are not repeated.
When Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) became the committee chairman, he asked federal agencies to return their copies of the report in an apparent effort to keep it secret. In response to an emergency motion by the ACLU in its FOIA lawsuit, the agencies committed to retaining their copies of the full report while litigation was pending.
During his Senate confirmation hearing, Attorney General Jeff Sessions committed that he would not return the Justice Department's copy of the report to the Senate. Also, the nominee for CIA general counsel, Courtney Simmons Elwood, committed during her confirmation hearing to read the full report, but the CIA is one of the agencies that returned its report. Her confirmation vote is set for Tuesday in the Senate.
President Obama deposited a copy of the full report with the National Archives, but it can't be made public for at least 12 years -- and may never be.
In a foreword to the report's executive summary, Sen. Feinstein wrote that the full report "provides substantially more detail than what is included in the Executive Summary on the CIA's justification and defense of its interrogation program on the basis that it was necessary and critical to the disruption of specific terrorist plots and the capture of specific terrorists."
This statement is here:
https://www.aclu.org/news/aclu-statement-trump-administration-effort-bu...
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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Dec 10, 2024
Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas on Tuesday again blocked the passage of House-approved bipartisan legislation meant to shield journalists and telecommunications companies from being compelled to disclose sources and other information to federal authorities.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) brought the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying (PRESS) Act—which would prohibit the federal government from forcing journalists and telecom companies to disclose certain information, with exceptions for terroristic or violent threats—for a unanimous consent vote.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) argued Tuesday that passing the PRESS Act is "more important now than ever before when we've heard some in the previous administration talk about going after the press in one way or another," a reference to Republican President-elect Donald Trump's threats to jail journalists who refuse to reveal the sources of leaks. Trump, who has referred to the press as the "enemy of the people," repeatedly urged Senate Republicans to "kill this bill."
Cotton, who blocked a vote on the legislation in December 2022, again objected to the bill, a move that thwarted its speedy passage. The Republican called the legislation a "threat to national security" and "the biggest giveaway to the liberal press in American history."
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"The FTC, along with our state partners, scored a major victory for the American people, successfully blocking Kroger's acquisition of Albertsons," said Henry Liu, director of the commission's Bureau of Competition, in a statement. "This historic win protects millions of Americans across the country from higher prices for essential groceries—from milk, to bread, to eggs—ultimately allowing consumers to keep more money in their pockets."
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Trump has picked Harmeet Dhillon as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. She has stated that it must be "made unsafe" for hospitals to provide trans care, and frequently shares Libs of TikTok posts. She intends to target trans people in blue states. Subscribe to support my journalism.
[image or embed]
— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) December 10, 2024 at 8:14 AM
Reed continued:
Dhillon's most prominent work includes founding the Center for American Liberty, a legal organization that focuses heavily on anti-transgender cases in blue states. The organization's "featured cases" section highlights several lawsuits, such as Chloe Cole's case against Kaiser Permanente; a lawsuit challenging a Colorado school's use of a transgender student's preferred name; a case against a California school district seeking to implement policies that would forcibly out transgender students; and a lawsuit against Vermont for denying a foster care license to a family unwilling to comply with nondiscrimination policies regarding transgender youth.
Reed also highlighted Dhillon's attacks on state laws protecting transgender people, as well as her expression of "extreme anti-trans views" on social media—including calling gender-affirming healthcare for trans children "child abuse."
Last year, The Guardian's Jason Wilson reported that the Center for American Liberty made a six-figure payment to a public relations firm that represented Dhillion in both "her capacity as head of her own for-profit law firm and Republican activist."
Writing for the voting rights platform Democracy Docket, Matt Cohen on Tuesday accused Dhillon of being "one of the leading legal figures working to roll back voting rights across the country."
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As Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement Tuesday, "The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division has the critical responsibility of enforcing our nation's federal civil rights laws and ensuring equal justice under the law on behalf of all of our communities."
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