The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged FOIA

ACLU Wants to Know the Legal Basis for CIA Drone Strikes

By | 01.13.10 | 2:46 pm

It’s a question that rarely gets asked: from where does the Obama administration locate the legal authority to launch missiles from the CIA’s unmanned drones into Pakistani (and, this week, Afghan) territory? The ACLU wants to know.

The civil liberties group today filed a Freedom of Information Act request More…

Supreme Court Throws Out Order to Disclose Abuse Photos

By | 11.30.09 | 11:07 am

The Supreme Court today threw out a ruling of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that had ordered the government to disclose photographs of detainees being abused by U.S. officials. The ruling was widely expected, given that Congress had recently changed the Freedom of Information Act More…

CIA Interrogation Tapes Destroyed Shortly After News Reports on CIA Black Sites and Interrogation Methods

By | 11.25.09 | 1:45 pm

Marcy Wheeler at Firedoglake has an interesting take today on the most recent summary of classified documents that the government turned over to the American Civil Liberties Union Friday, as part of its response to the organization’s Freedom of Information Act requests about the More…

Declassified Docs Reveal Pentagon Ignored FBI’s Warnings on Abusive Interrogations

By | 11.07.09 | 7:05 pm

The Justice Department released more documents — or, at least, less-redacted documents — late Friday to the American Civil Liberties Union as part of the government’s obligation in a pending Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

These latest documents provide a glimpse of the early struggles between the FBI and the More…

ICE Sweep Yields More ‘Incidentals’ Than Criminals

By | 11.05.09 | 4:05 pm

A four-day sweep conducted last November in Arizona by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents looking for immigrant fugitives and criminals resulted primarily in the arrests of immigrants who were neither criminals nor fugitives, the American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona has found.

The operation was supposed to be More…

More Torture Docs Could Be Released Friday

By | 10.29.09 | 10:01 pm

Nick Baumann at Mother Jones reminds us that the Obama administration promised earlier this month to do its best to review about 224 more documents that might be responsive to the American Civil Liberties Union’s Freedom of Information Act longstanding requests for documents relating to the torture, abuse More…

Obama Signs Law Authorizing Suppression of Torture Photos

By | 10.29.09 | 6:33 pm

Among other things in the Homeland Security appropriations bill President Obama signed into law yesterday is a provision that authorizes the Defense Department to continue to conceal photos of the torture and abuse of detainees by U.S. forces. The American Civil Liberties Union had More…

Behind the Musical Torture

By | 10.22.09 | 3:20 pm

R.E.M., Pearl Jam, Billy Bragg and David Byrne don’t like to think of music as torture, or part of any “enhanced interrogation techniques.” But declassified government documents show that at least some music — notably, Metallica, Britney Spears and some unidentified rap music, according to a 2004 Defense Department report More…

Court Rules Government Can Continue to Hide Detainee Torture Testimony

By | 10.16.09 | 2:43 pm

A federal court today ruled that the government can continue to suppress transcripts of former CIA prisoners now being held at Guantanamo Bay talking about abuse and torture they suffered in CIA custody. The ruling came in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil More…

House Passes FOIA Amendment to Hide Abuse Photos

By | 10.15.09 | 2:53 pm

Notwithstanding Rep. Louise Slaughter’s (D-N.Y.) impassioned plea, the House this afternoon passed that amendment to alter the Freedom of Information Act and hide detainee abuse photos — and to keep the question of what’s secret and what’s not away from the courts.