The Lieberman amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations Act, which would give the secretary of defense the authority to block the release of any "photographic record" normally subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act that relates to the treatment of suspected terrorist detainees, passed the House yesterday. The White House supported the measure, which is basically a way to preempt an ACLU FOIA lawsuit seeking the release of the pictures, which the administration has said will harm national security by inflaming anti-American sentiment.
I've already expressed my apprehension about giving the government the right to hide evidence of its own wrongdoing. The ACLU released a statement yesterday urging Defense Secretary Robert Gates not to use the authority given if the bill makes it through the Senate with the Lieberman amendment still intact. From Jameel Jaffer, who runs the ACLU's national security project:
We are deeply disappointed that the House voted to give the Defense Department the authority to hide evidence of its own misconduct, and we hope the Senate will not follow suit. If this bill does become law, the Secretary of Defense should not invoke it. Instead, Secretary Gates should be guided by 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 national security than their disclosure would be. The last administration's decision to endorse torture undermined the United States' moral authority and compromised its security. The failure of the current administration to fully confront the abuses of the last administration will only compound these harms.
If the ACLU is asking Gates not to use this authority -- and I can't imagine he wouldn't, given that the White House supports the amendment -- I'm not sure how optimistic people should be about the possibility of the amendment being removed as the bill makes its way through the Senate.
-- A. Serwer
