Obama, Congress prepare to thwart ACLU suit over abuse photos

By Stephen C. Webster
Saturday, October 10th, 2009 -- 10:24 am

Abu Ghraib prison abuse Obama, Congress prepare to thwart ACLU suit over abuse photos In the continuing legal battle over 21 photographs showing terror war prisoner abuse, the U.S. government has not seen much success arguing for nondisclosure in federal court.

So, the Obama administration -- which once promised to make public this shameful chapter of the Bush administration -- has hatched a new strategy to keep the scenes of torture from being released.

"The Obama administration believes giving the imminent grant of authority over the release of such pictures to the defense secretary would short-circuit a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act," reported the Associated Press on Saturday.

It was with this new strategy in mind that the administration asked Supreme Court justices to stay their decision on the photos' release, allowing Congress time to vote on dictating the authority solely to the secretary of defense.

The photos relate to abuse alleged to have taken place between 2001 and 2005 in Abu Ghraib and six other prisons. Some of the photos were said to depict rape and sexual abuse, though the Pentagon has denied this.

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The measure is part of a Homeland Security appropriations bill that may be voted on in the coming week. The Supreme Court could rule on the photos as early as Tuesday, AP added.

"Congress should not give the government the authority to hide evidence of its own misconduct, and if it does grant that authority, the Secretary of Defense should not invoke it," ACLU National Security Project Director Jameel Jaffer said in a press release. "If this shameful provision passes, Secretary Gates should take into account the importance of transparency to the democratic process, the extraordinary importance of these photos to the ongoing debate about the treatment of prisoners, and the likelihood that the suppression of these photos will ultimately be far more damaging to our national security than their disclosure would be."

US military commanders have sternly warned that the photos could be used as a recruiting tool by extremists and jeopardize the safety of US troops.

"The publication of these photos would not add any additional benefits to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals," President Obama said in May after reversing his promise to have the images released.

The president additionally said the photos were not particularly sensational when compared to photos of prisoner abuse that sparked the Abu Ghraib scandal.

"We’re disappointed that conference committee members have approved this troubling legislation that will allow the government to withhold evidence of human rights abuses perpetrated by government personnel," ACLU Washington Legislative Office Director Michael Macleon-Ball said in a media advisory. "Congress should not provide this authority."

"Lower courts have ruled that a provision of FOIA allows documents to be withheld from the public for security reasons only in instances where there are specific threats against individuals," AP added.

With AFP.

This article was modified from from a prior version.

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Story comments are below...

joeschmoe
I think Lewis Black said it best about our current so-called "two-party" system: "It's like a bowl of shit looking at itself in the mirror."

Juan Valdez
I would like to comment on this story, but we no longer have the "freedom of speech" in this country, and I should not like to be tortured.....

Hate Goldberg??

No More Hope
Obama and Congress are ratifying torture. Despicable, and as unAmerican as the Bush Administration and the torturers themselves.

The United States is moving farther and farther away from civilized democracy. History will not be kind to our memory.

miggy
And what would your remedy be when peaceful protestors are surrounded by goon squads and jailed? When the news Media is totally controlled? When the majority of the American people are not knowledgeable or articulate about most of the issues? When most of our Congressional representatives are bought and paid for by heavy-duty Corporate donations?

When our current Supreme Court is likely to render a vote at the end of December that permits Corporations to spend as much as they want to campaign with advertising, documentaries, whatever, for or against the candidates of their choice?

When there are no regulations on the BIG-MONEY FOLKS who come up with one scheme after another to make huge profits for themselves and manipulate stocks and holdings and the real estate market and the whole nine yards, and leave heartbroken, financially ruined citizens on the sidewalks that lead to shelters and tent cities? When regardless of strong public preference, decisions are made that ignore those preferences?

How do we change the system that is reminiscent of Nazi Germany and Corporate Fascism under Benito Mussolini? ...

How?
I'm all ears.

War is the rich man’s form of terrorism

Terrorism is the poor man’s form of war.

farang
How Obama finds time to try to hide the torture committed by the Bush and now his administration while vigorously defending the "rights" of cocksuckers, corn-holers and deviates to join the armed forces is beyond me....my my, what a busy man he is....

moi2cents
Dood, maybe you're confused.
"Rights" are something enjoyed by all, irrespective of persuasion or preference.
For example, because of the First Amendment of the Constitution, you can, within reasonable bounds, be as bigoted an asshole as ya wanna be right here on the boards. Hell, I don't know, farang, it'd be pretty repugnant, but you could stand on top of your house and scream about how you hate people with "foreign soundin' names".
Priviledges...now that's a different story. Nuance, my man, nuance.

farang
moi2cents 1 day ago
"Dood, maybe you're confused."

About what?

"Rights" are something enjoyed by all, irrespective of persuasion or preference."

And where did I say they weren't?

"For example, because of the First Amendment of the Constitution, you can, within reasonable bounds, be as bigoted an asshole as ya wanna be right here on the boards."

And how am I "bigoted", because I truthfully pointed out this Obama asshole said he would make this torture and abuse public, but now hides it, while busily campaigning for homosexual rights to join the armed forces? I could give a rat's ass whether gays and lesbians join the military or not: I suppose they enjoy being part of the disgraced torturing gang. "Rights", like you have a fucking clue, child.

Hell, I don't know, farang, it'd be pretty repugnant, but you could stand on top of your house and scream about how you hate people with "foreign soundin' names".

That might look funny, seeing as how I live in Chiangmai, Thailand, ya think?

"Priviledges...now that's a different story. Nuance, my man, nuance."

Anyone that spells privileges with a D, well, there is no D in privileges, but there is in dumbass: if the shoe fits wear it.

Gawd only knows what "nuances" you are referring to.

Korp Kuhn Krup, and Sawasdee Krup!

That's thank you very much, and good night, "Dood."

Thebes
Didn't Obama promise more transparency?
Oh, oops, I forgot he's just ANOTHER lying politician.
At least under Bush there was an organized opposition to his wars and his power grabs. Now it seems like the debate is WHO to kill and whether to use bombs or bullets.
Sickening.

miggy
The notion that a newly-elected president is taken to a back room and "talked to" by state security and/or shadow government operatives is attractive. In fact, it's part of popular culture:
_________________________________________
I walked into El Presidente’s office two days after he was elected and congratulated him… I said “Mr. President, in here I got a couple hundred million dollars for you and your family, if you play the game – you know, be kind to my friends who run the oil companies, treat your Uncle Sam good.” Then I stepped closer, reached my right hand into the other pocket, bent down next to his face, and whispered, “In here I got a gun and a bullet with your name on it – in case you decide to keep your campaign promises.” I stepped back, sat down, and recited a little list for him, of presidents who were assassinated or overthrown because they defied their Uncle Sam: from Diem to Torrijos – you know the routine. He got the message. – John Perkins, quoting an anonymous source in his new book, “The Secret History of the American Empire – Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption”.
_________________________________________
No matter what promises you make on the campaign trail, blah blah blah, when you win (the U.S. Presidency), you go into this smoky room with the 12 industrialist, capitalist scumfucks that got you in there, and this little screen comes down...and its a shot of the JFK assassination from an angle you've never seen before, which looks suspiciously like the grassy knoll, and then the screen comes up and the lights go on, and they ask the new president "any questions?" – Comedian Bill Hicks
_________________________________________
But when this scenario is raised about Obama, as it often is in Internet comments, it's like dropping one shoe.

What's the implication? If Obama has truly been coerced into doing the bidding of his Sinister Masters, where does that leave us? Are we supposed to pity Obama for being in such a dire predicament?

IF this were true, do we excuse Obama for playing along, like a victim who's threatened with reprisals if he or she tells the cops what's going on?

Or is this scenario invoked to make the case that it isn't that we're devolving into an irrevocable imperial police state, it's that we've BEEN living in one for decades? That's the only conclusion I can logically extrapolate from this: the public goes through the formality of electing a president, but the president is null and void because he's trapped in a bind. So there's no way out for him (her) OR the rest of us. Game Over.

I feel as if I'm missing something here; what's the other shoe?

Max_1
The other shoe...?
... We, The People!

It's just that We, The People are too cowered to care, to paralyzed by fear, to obedient to examine the truths that we're frozen in that step.

ProudPrimate
That's exactly right. Obama knew that before the election, and told a story that he heard from Belafonte, which he heard from Eleanor Roosevelt, how FDR had attended a speech by the great black labor organizer A. Phillip Randolph. At the end FDR made a brief comment to the effect that, "I agree with everything you've said tonight, Mr. Randolph, including the fact that I am in a position to greatly enhance the chances of those things succeeding. Now I'm going to ask one thing of you: Go out and make me do it!"

If there's a big enough groundswell, a righteous president has far more power to succeed at the good works he wants to do. Without it, he will be overwhelmed. And the lazy public will blame him, but they ought to blame themselves.

ProudPrimate
I applaud your sources. Let me reply by reposting here a post I put on a Reuters piece earlier today:

___________________________
Rare public figures like Obama must walk a very fine line. They are like the bomb disposal crew in the PBS series “Danger: UXB” during the London Blitz. They must dismantle the Deep State without losing their political, as in the case of Sen. Frank Church, or their biological life, as in the case of the Kennedys (all three) and Martin King (not to mention Malcolm).

Jack Kennedy was on the verge of “splintering the CIA in a thousand pieces and scattering it to the winds” after Nixon’s pet project in the Bay of Pigs; he had made semi-public his plans to pull the plug on the inchoate Vietnam War; he had already issued the Executive Order 11110, returning the power of the issuance of currency, the fondly remembered Silver Certificate, to the government. Upon his death, Johnson quickly undid that brief freedom from the tyranny of the Banksters, the so-called “Federal Reserve”. Kennedy had fired Allen Dulles, the nation’s all-time greatest traitor, but shortly thereafter, Dulles sat on the Warren Commission, dismissing the conspiracy. Years later the Committee on Assassinations admitted it was real.

Frank Church may have done more harm to the Deep State, exposing it on the permanent, indelible record. He was politically assassinated by vast influx of money from the still extant apartheid South African regime, but they could not erase his high mark on the tree.

Obama’s greatest hope should be to do things that the Deep State cannot undo by killing him. That will make such drastic measures less likely.
___________________________

(I'm adopting your makeshift blockquote lines).

The thing that will turn this big ship around is when enough people become aware of the Deep State, to use Peter Dale Scott's term, which arises out of a Turkish context, when certain members of the so-called Gray Wolves were discovered in a car with certain government officials and chiefs of the state police who were ostensibly hunting the Gray Wolves.

The Public State is what the cockerspaniels we call the electorate are shown, and believe in. The Deep State is what calls the shots, using bribery and threats of blackmail and worse. Administrations come and go, but the Deep State endures from decade to decade.

Heroic figures like Frank Church, whose hearings in the Senate created an indelible record of the scarcely believable crimes of the CIA in MKULTRA, PAPERCLIP, and many others, and of the FBI in COINTELPRO, and the hounding of progressive figures like MLK.

99% of the people that you, Miggy, rub shoulders with every day, don't even know the facts of Iran/Contra, even though it all happened on TV, and can be thoroughly understood merely by watching the 90-minute Bill Moyers special The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis from 1987 on Google Video for free.

If we who know can spread the knowledge to enough people, things could conceivably change. In the meantime, incremental change like taking away the health tax, by which I mean the backbreaking parasites called insurance companies, is the sure way to lessen the grip of the monster.

You quoted John Perkins, one of the truest voices out there.

Alex Jones had Perkins on the phone on August 24th, and it's on YouTube in
4 parts, Part 1, Part 2,Part 3, Part 4.

Perkins has a new book coming out in less than a month called Hoodwinked: An Economic Hit Man Reveals Why the World Financial Markets Imploded--and What We Need to Do to Remake Them, in which he offers what he considers to be a viable revolt, in the form of masses changing their buying habits. I am preliminarily convinced that it is a realistic thesis, and can't wait to read it. But it's up to us. Here's a quote from the Alex Jones 8-25-09 interview:

___________________________
"Again, I don't have any inside information on Obama's personality or those people around him, but my suspicion is, he's probably a guy with a conscience, who would like to do the right thing, and so would many of his people, but you get caught in this system, and once you're in, it's extremely scary. And what are you gonna do? How're you gonna fight the CIA? How're you gonna fight the military?

So you try to do whatever you can on whatever front you can. But I've seen this happen time and again with Latin American presidents, who want to do the right thing, but realize, if they get thrown out or they get assassinated, that's not gonna do any good, because the next president coming along is just gonna be scared, terribly scared, and they're not gonna do anything. So you try to stay in power, and you try to do what you can. In the case of a guy like Obama, he's tried to institute some environmental laws that're decent, and he's tried to do some things with health insurance, but he keeps running into these very, very powerful forces of resistance.

And so it comes down to us. We have to speak out a lot more. We have to do a lot more. We the people, we have to stand up to corporations, and say "Listen! I'm not buying from Dole or Chiquita." Y'know? And send them emails: "We're never buying another one of your bananas or pineapples because of what you're doing in Honduras. You change your ways or we're gonna force you to go out of business."
___________________________

I went into detail about these matters in a thread called
Colombian hitman: 2,500 paramilitary in Venezuela with goal of ‘taking down’ Chavez, in which I made a lot of points and included a lot of references that it would be wasteful to repost, but q.v. there. WARNING: me and another guy overloaded the thread, so it can no longer sort in tree-form, but must be viewed as a list of posts. When the warning dialog says, "A script is ... bla bla bla... Stop script?" your only choice is yes, stop the script.

Yomama
Great men do not fear death in face of relentless adversity. Obama is not a great man. He is an utter coward and a traitor to the ideals of our Republic for allowing torture, extraordinary rendition, and these two fucking genocidal wars to continue.

ProudPrimate
The racist username you have chosen gives you away. Why not change it to "SouthernMan"? Whom did you vote for in 2000, if you don't mind my asking?

EvanRavitz
Bad President! No Pretzel!

facebook-1160038763
What happened to Obama's promise of a greater transparency in Government? I don't think Obama's administration should spearhead a witch-hunt, but transparent should be more than just a crossdressing father.