The Washington Independent

Posts Tagged FOIA

More on the Congressional Move to Amend FOIA, Hide Torture Photos

By | 10.15.09 | 1:56 pm

To follow up on my earlier post about Rep. Louis Slaughter (D-N.Y.) and her speech on her colleagues’ move to amend the Freedom of Information Act to prevent the release of photographs depicting abuse of detainees in U.S. custody, it’s worth looking at the conference report More…

Louise Slaughter Slams Effort to Amend FOIA to Shield Abuse Photos

By | 10.15.09 | 12:32 pm

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) today blasted the Obama administration, as well as some of her colleagues in the House and Senate, for including a provision in the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill that would amend the Freedom of Information Act to exempt from disclosure photos depicting the abuse of detainees in More…

Did the NSA Wiretap Gitmo Defense Lawyers?

By | 10.09.09 | 12:49 pm

That’s one of the questions coming up in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit being argued today by the Center for Constitutional Rights on behalf of 23 lawyers who believe they may have been wiretapped without a warrant by the National Security Agency during the Bush administration. But More…

Obama Administration Agrees to Disclose White House Visitor Logs

By | 09.04.09 | 11:09 am

After the Justice Department dragged out four different lawsuits seeking public access to White House visitor records, the Obama administration finally agreed yesterday to settle the cases, brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and committed to post visitor records online.

CREW Executive Director Melanie More…

As Expected, CIA Continues to Withhold Key Documents

By | 09.01.09 | 3:06 pm

As Spencer noted, in responding to a federal judge’s order to turn over another batch of documents including President George W. Bush’s authorization of CIA secret prisons, and records of investigations into the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody, the Department of Justice instead opted More…

Unpopular Photography

By | 08.12.09 | 5:11 pm

Daphne Eviatar is guest-blogging for Glenn Greenwald today. The following is cross-posted at Salon.

If, as the latest reports indicate, Attorney General Eric Holder is serious about prosecuting the worst torture and abuse of “war on terror” prisoners that occurred during the Bush administration, then More…

Chaos Reigned in Guantanamo’s Early Days, Documents Show

By | 07.07.09 | 6:00 am

Statements declassified just before the July 4 holiday from the former commanders of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility paint an alarming picture of the camp’s early years, as interrogators’ and guards’ competence and discipline were frequently in doubt, befitting one commander’s assessment that the facility’s command was “an ad hoc More…

Another Take on the Torture Photos

By | 05.14.09 | 11:48 am

At the risk of sounding like one of those Obama apologists that Glenn Greenwald effectively pilloried in his post yesterday, I have to say that I’m not as appalled as all my civil libertarian friends — or legal scholars like Jonathan Turley (here on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow More…

Conyers Renews Call for Investigation of Bush Administration Actions

By | 04.17.09 | 3:37 pm

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-Mich.) today issued not one but two press releases responding to the latest batch of Bush-era Office of Legal Counsel torture memos produced yesterday by the Justice Department in response to Freedom of Information Act litigation brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

Conyers, More…

Bush Six to Be Indicted Today (In Spain)

By | 04.14.09 | 8:58 am

Spanish prosecutors have decided to go ahead with a criminal investigation of the six senior lawyers — including former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales — who allegedly crafted the legal justification for the Bush administration’s torture and abuse of detainees in its “war on terror,” Scott Horton reports today More…