Steven Aftergood of Secrecy News reported Thursday that Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the Southern District of N.Y. has ruled that "defendant CIA . . . may not avoid the requirements imposed by FOIA." -- Aftergood comments: "It would be hard to overstate the contribution made by the ACLU to overcoming government recalcitrance on the subject of torture. Through its Freedom of Information Act litigation, the organization has energetically helped to fill some of the void left by a slack, nearly dormant system of congressional oversight. 'Somewhere in the upper reaches of this Administration, a process was set in motion that rolled forward until it produced scandalous results,' said Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) yesterday, referring to the shifting government policy on torture. 'We may never know the full story, because the Administration has circled the wagons and stonewalled on requests for information. What little we know we owe to leaks, to the initiative of the press, to international human rights organizations, and to a few internal Defense Department investigations, and to Freedom of Information Act litigation,' Leahy said." -- Sen. Leahy, it will be recalled, is the ranking Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and the person whom Vice President (and President of the Senate, under Article I, Section 3 of the United States Constitution) Dick Cheney told on the floor of the Senate to either "f*** off" or "go f*** yourself" (accounts differ) on Jun. 22, 2004....
A COURT TELLS CIA NO
By Steven Aftergood
Secrecy News
February 3, 2005
http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html
A federal court yesterday rejected a move by the Central Intelligence Agency to block a Freedom of Information Act request from the ACLU for CIA records concerning the treatment of detainees held in U.S. custody or "rendered" abroad to countries known to employ torture.
The court said the CIA claim that such records were "operational files" that are exempt from search and review under the Freedom of Information Act is unsustainable.
"I hold that defendant CIA has failed to satisfy the statutory prerequisites for invoking the operational files exemption, and hence may not avoid the requirements imposed by FOIA," wrote Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein of the Southern District of New York in a February 2 ruling:
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/cia/acludod20205opn.pdf
CIA's now-rejected argument in favor of exemption is presented here:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/jud/cia120804.pdf
It would be hard to overstate the contribution made by the ACLU to overcoming government recalcitrance on the subject of torture. Through its Freedom of Information Act litigation, the organization has energetically helped to fill some of the void left by a slack, nearly dormant system of congressional oversight.
"Somewhere in the upper reaches of this Administration, a process was set in motion that rolled forward until it produced scandalous results," said Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) yesterday, referring to the shifting government policy on torture.
"We may never know the full story, because the Administration has circled the wagons and stonewalled on requests for information. What little we know we owe to leaks, to the initiative of the press, to international human rights organizations, and to a few internal Defense Department investigations, and to Freedom of Information Act litigation," Leahy said.