Jake Tapper reports that the Obama administration has decided against releasing photos that depict detainees being abused by U.S. soldiers, citing national security reasons. The photos were meant to be released as the result of a FOIA lawsuit filed against the Department of Defense by the ACLU.
There are obviously potential consequences for releasing the photos. But it's not as though American abuse of detainees in our custody is a secret matter--it's a self-serving argument that the government should be able to hide evidence of its abuse on such grounds. The public interest in seeing what was done in their name, in my view, trumps the government's right to obscure its own wrongdoing.
-- A. Serwer
