Obama’s Inexcusable Support for New Detainee Photo Secrecy Law

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


While the press have been investigating Gen. Antonio Taguba’s claim that photos existed that “show rape” of detainees by Americans, Congress and the Obama administration have been working behind the scene to pass a law allowing the executive branch to summarily withhold any photos of detainee treatment it wants for an effectively unlimited time. Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald reports that the White House is “actively supporting” a bill called The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009 that would pre-empt the ACLU’s court battle with the administration and allow Obama to pre-empt any future efforts to force the government to disclose evidence of torture. 

It’s one thing for the president to fight in court for the ability to withhold these specific photos in this specific instance. It’s another thing entirely to lobby for detainee treatment photos to get blanket immunity from the Freedom of Information Act. But that’s what Obama’s doing.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and usual suspect Joe Lieberman (I-CT), would allow the administration to easily suppress “photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States” as long as the Secretary of Defense claimed it was to protect the troops. The bill is reportedly sailing through Congress. “What kind of a country passes a law that has no purpose other than to empower its leader to suppress evidence of the torture it inflicted on people?” Greenwald asks. Indeed. What kind of a president says “Let me say it as simply as I can: Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency,” and then supports such a law?

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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