Torture Investigation Hindering Torture Transparency?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


If you want accountability, you can’t have transparency.

That’s essentially what government lawyers told the American Civil Liberties Union in a letter [PDF] filed with Judge Alvin Hellerstein in federal district court in New York on Monday. The letter is the latest development in an ACLU lawsuit that aims to force the Department of Defense and other government entities to disclose documents relating to the treatment, death, and extraordinary rendition of detainees.

On September 2, Judge Hellerstein ordered the CIA to search records within its inspector general’s office for documents relating to the destruction of videotapes of illegal interrogations and the “persons and reasons behind their destruction.” The government’s latest letter informs the court that the CIA found some information that should rightfully be disclosed under to the Freedom of Information Act—but it still couldn’t release any of it. The special prosecutor appointed by the Bush administration to investigate the destruction of the videotapes has asserted that the documents are exempt from disclosure, because their release could impair his ability to conduct his investigation.

The move by the special prosecutor, John Durham, in support of withholding the documents “could delay transparency,” says Alex Abdo, one of the ACLU lawyers working on the case. Prosecutors often use this particular FOIA exemption, Abdo says—sometimes with good cause and sometimes to justify neverending internal inquiries that prevent any outside groups from obtaining evidence of government wrongdoing. If there’s eventually accountability for the people responsible for torture and the destruction of the tapes, that might be an acceptable trade-off, Abdo says.

But without more information, it’s hard for the ACLU to tell whether Durham is justified in claiming that more transparency could harm his investigation. The government is due to file a more detailed explanation of what it’s withholding and why next Tuesday. We’ll know more then.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate