Defense Dept given week to explain to explain why it hasn't complied w/court order on torture pics [View all]

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Guardian news @guardiannews
Judge orders action over photographs depicting US military abuse http://d.gu.com/8PCnZ6


____At a district court hearing in Manhattan on Wednesday, judge Alvin Hellerstein described the consequences of the government’s decade long court battle to suppress the photographs, as a way “to obtain a very substantial delay” on disclosure...

The American Civil Liberties Union has been fighting a transparency case against the Defense Department since 2004. Some photographs, which document treatment of detainees in detention facilities after the September 11 attacks, are said to be more disturbing that the infamous images of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib uncovered in 2004.

Both the district court in 2005 and the second circuit court of appeals in 2008 held that the images should be released. But legislation was subsequently introduced through the senate to exempt the photographs from Freedom of Information laws, as they would jeopardize national security.

In 2012, then Defense secretary Leon Panetta reclassified all the photographs, having been presented with a small selection of the collection. Panetta’s move was subsequently challenged, with Hellerstein ruling last year for the individual exemptions to be made.

On Wednesday, Hellerstein reiterated his scepticism for the blanket reclassification, stating he was “highly suspicious of something certified in gross”. The judge has already been presented with a small sample of the images, and has indicated that there were not clearcut national security exemption grounds for some that he saw.


read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/05/department-of-defense-federal-order-detainees-photographs

Newsweek ‏@Newsweek 13h13 hours ago
U.S. Government Warned on Withholding Detainee Abuse Photographs http://bit.ly/1xlNS9P