Congressional Action Succesful in Blocking Judicial Release of Torture Photos

On Nov. 30, Congress and the President succeeded in tying the hands of the judicial system from releasing photographic evidence of American soldiers torturing detainees in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan.  The Supreme Court today reversed [1]a lower court ruling that the pictures must be released.

Since the lower court decision, the Obama administration worked to aggressively cover up evidence behind closed doors despite its public posturing.  Attorney General Eric Holder testified in June that the administration would appeal the lower court decision to the Supreme Court and if unsuccessful would review their opinions on the matter.

Statements by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), however, indicated that the administration wanted to see legislative action to stop the release of the photographs.  After Holder’s testimony, the Senate passed the Detainee Records Photo Protection Act of 2009 (S 1285 [2]) with unanimous consent that would have exempted such photographs from the Freedom of Information Act.  The bill passed easily in the House on October 28 as an amendment to the Defense Department’s authorization bill (HR 2647 [3]).

Unsurprisingly, the Supreme Court pointed to this legislation in a one-paragraph ruling as the reason for allowing the administration to withhold these records.  The decision places the case back in the hands of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which will likely follow orders not to release the records.

Earlier this year, the Obama administration released [4]memoranda that detailed the policy and actions of U.S. personnel in torturing detainees because “the existence of that approach to interrogation was already widely known.”  Logic follows that continuing to withhold the images of such abuses can only be an effort to obscure the historical record.  The administration, on the other hand, claims it is an effort to protect American soldiers.  However, it’s impossible to conceive of how our soldiers are safer if our government continues to conceal evidence of its past crimes.

[5]