Next Steps in Getting That CIA Inspector General Report

The 2004 report into the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation program” from then-Inspector General John Helgerson is becoming something of a white whale for the ACLU. Although the civil liberties group had reached an agreement earlier this year with the Obama administration to release the report — considered a “holy grail” of information about how the program worked –  the administration received three reprieves from disclosing it from Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a federal district court judge in New York, and on Thursday requested a fourth. That’s proven too much for the ACLU. On Thursday, its lawyers wrote to Hellerstein to get him to deny the Justice Department’s request not to disclose the report until August 31.

Now, says Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU’s national-security director, all the organization can do is wait to hear what Hellerstein rules. The holiday weekend essentially called a pause in court business for Hellerstein. Jaffer says the ACLU hopes “to hear within a day or two” from Hellerstein about what the judge makes of the Justice Department request, and will proceed from there.