The Obama Administration notched another victory in its War on Transparency in Government today as the Second Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the U.S. government could withhold photographs of detainee abuse pending an appeal to the Supreme Court.
The Second Circuit stayed its own support of a lower court ruling requiring release of the photographs to give the Administration time to file its appeal.
The ACLU wasn't pleased.
"We are disappointed by this ruling," said ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh. "It further delays the disclosure of photographs that are critical to informing the debate about the treatment of U.S. prisoners."
Yusill Scribner, a spokeswoman for government lawyers in Manhattan, said the government had no comment. (source)
Between reversing its position on release of the photographs and its support of an assault on the Freedom of Information Act by Senators Lindsey Graham (R - Outer Wingnutistan) and Joe Lieberman (CfL - John McCain's Umbra), it appears that transparency in government will depend on what the President thinks you and I should see.
And they're willing to change the law to make sure that the President's power to withold information from the public is unfettered.
Glenn Greenwald addressed this earlier.
Imagine if a foreign government were accused of systematically torturing and otherwise brutally abusing detainees in its custody for years, and there was ample photographic evidence proving the extent and brutality of the abuse. Further imagine that the country's judiciary -- applying decades-old transparency laws -- ruled that the government was legally required to make that evidence public. But in response, that country's President demanded that those transparency laws be retroactively changed for no reason other than to explicitly empower him to keep the photographic evidence suppressed, and a compliant Congress then immediately passed a new law empowering the President to suppress that evidence. 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? (source)
(Emphasis in the original.)
Apparently President Obama believes that his judgement supercedes the law of the land in determining what government records the American public is entitled to see - and he'll support changing the law if the courts don't accede to his judgement.
I don't believe the Administration's excuses about withholding the photographs. I believe this is a political decision, pure and simple.
More importantly, I believe that supporting an obvious attempt to undermine the Freedom of Information Act sets a very dangerous precedent. FOIA sets very clear parameters to what the government can withhold and why, and President Obama supports stripping the law of its authority, making it more difficult for American citizens to monitor the activities of its government.
The government has no comment, indeed.