PHOTOS? I KNOW NO PHOTOS ...

[defrog]

ITEM: A new bill jointly sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman, called The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009, aims to retroactively change the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) so that any "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" can be suppressed by the govt – provided the govt feels they might "endanger" American citizens or troops.

Put another way, the bill would allow the White House to block the release of detainee torture photos even if a judge ordered them to be released under the FOIA criteria.

Put another way, it means the White House would have the power to cover up photographic evidence of torture.

The Obama Admin actively supports this bill.

Glenn Greenwald explains why this matters:

What makes all of this even worse is that it is part of a broader trend whereby the Government simply retroactively changes the law whenever it decides it does not want to abide by it.  For decades, we had laws in place authorizing citizens to sue their telecommunication carriers if the telecoms allowed government spying on their communications in violation of the law, but when it was revealed that the telecoms did exactly this, the Congress simply changed the law retroactively so that it no longer applied.  For decades, we had laws imposing civil and criminal liability on government officials who engaged in or authorized torture, but when it was revealed that our government did that, the Congress just retroactively changed the law to protect the torturers.  And now that courts have ruled that our decades-old transparency law compels disclosure of this torture evidence, the Congress is just going to retroactively change the law -- again -- this time to empower the President to suppress that evidence anyway.

You know ... this isn’t exactly the “change” I was hoping for.

Make it go away,

This is dF

Comments

[bosswriter.livejournal.com]

This certainly sounds like Bush era thinking. Hopefully, Obama will think about this and realize the dangers of moving down this path.

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

Well, with his background in constitutional law, you'd think he'd know better already...