ACLU files FOIA request regarding VA Department of Transportation policies

from ACLU press release:

Winchester, VA - The ACLU of Virginia has filed a Freedom of Information Act Request with the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) seeking information about policies and practices affecting the destruction of the possessions of homeless persons who use land under the agency's control.

The ACLU's request comes in the wake of a January 5 incident in which a company under contract with VDOT destroyed a homeless encampment along Interstate 81 at Exit 315 near Winchester. According to news reports at least four homeless men had been using the property for months when road maintenance crews demolished the encampment.

The homeless men were not present at the time, but apparently lost tents, sleeping bags, camping gear, clothes, canned food and medication. At least one man lost his wallet, including his Social Security Card and birth certificate. The men received no advance notice that their property would be destroyed.

According to court precedents homeless persons, even while located on right-of-ways or other state property, have constitutional rights regarding their possessions.

"Federal courts have consistently ruled that homeless persons have an expectation of privacy that includes the right to be notified before their property can be seized or destroyed," said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis. "They may be homeless, but they are still entitled to the same constitutional protections that apply to the rest of us."

Read the rest here.

Court rules government can continue to suppress detainee statements describing torture and abuse

from the ACLU:

WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court ruled that the government can continue suppressing transcripts in which former CIA prisoners now held at Guantánamo Bay describe abuse and torture they suffered in CIA custody. The ruling came in an ACLU Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to obtain uncensored transcripts from Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) used to determine if Guantánamo detainees qualify as "enemy combatants."

“The American people have a right to know what the government has done in their name, and these transcripts, which include the direct testimony of the victims themselves, are essential to a full understanding of the Bush administration’s torture program,” said Ben Wizner, Litigation Director of the ACLU National Security Project, who argued the appeal for the ACLU. “The court’s decision undermines the Freedom of Information Act and condones a cover-up. These transcripts are being suppressed not to protect national security, but to shield former government officials from accountability.”

The ACLU lawsuit sought transcripts of statements made by Guantánamo prisoners concerning the abuse they allegedly suffered while in U.S. custody. While the CIA released heavily-redacted versions of the documents in June 2009, it continues to suppress major portions of the documents, including detainees' allegations of torture.

Read the rest here.

Document Warns 9/11 Commission to "Not Cross the Line"

Using the FOIA, The ACLU obtained a document wherein the 9/11 Commission was warned on Jan. 16, 2004, by high-level Bush administration officials to "not cross the line" in its investigation (see CIA4-007).

Click here to read why some think the memo is a small part of a cover up to gag the 9/11 Commission from true fact-finding.

ACLU Sues USAID for FOIA Violations over Abstinence-Only Programs

The ACLU has sued the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for failing to provide documents regarding its overseas religiously-influenced abstinence-only-until-marriage programs. In July and September 2009, the ACLU sent USAID requests for the programs funded through HIV/AIDs grants, including requests for proposals, contracts with USAID, curricula used by grantees, communications between USAID and the White House, and communications between USAID and its grantees about religious instruction in the abstinence-only-until-marriage programs.

A recent Inspector General's report says the programs unconstitutionally promote religiously infused materials and messages.

For more information, click here.

Congress Expected to Pass Bill Permitting Defense Department to Suppress Evidence of its Misconduct

Congress is expected to pass an amendment to the Homeland Security appropriations bill this week that will allow the Defense Department to suppress evidence of its own misconduct.  The amendment has passed the House and is headed to the Senate floor for a final vote.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) proposed the amendment in response to an appellate court decision requiring the Defense Department to release photos of Afghan and Iraqi prisoner abuse, stemming from a 2003 FOIA request filed by the ACLU.  

More from the LA Times here.

Provision in a Homeland Security Funding Bill Would Block Release of Torture Photos

The American Civil Liberties Union says a provision of the homeland security funding bill could block the release of photos of prisoners abused in U.S. custody abroad.  Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) proposed the provision, which would make such photos exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. 

The ACLU filed a FOI request for 2,000 photos of alleged abuse with the Department of Defense in 2003.  In 2005, a U.S. District Court judge in New York ordered the photos released, a decision that was upheld in 2008 by an appellate court.   The Obama administration has refused to comply with the order and asked the Supreme Court to hear the case.   

Click here for more information.  

Release Defense documents still redacted

Although the Department of Defense released 12 documents related to detainee abuse, the redaction of key details is still pretty heavy, The Public Record reported. Some of what the Obama administration redacted had been previously released under Bush. One page is fully redacted. What wasn't redacted, however, suggests that Bush player a larger role in prisoner interrogation than he has admitted to. "I got my marching orders from the president," Maj. Gen. Mike Dunlavey said.

The Department of Defense released redacted documents Thursday related to abuse and torture of detainees held in U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay and other overseas prisons.

The 12 documents were released as part of the American Civil Liberties Union's long-running Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the government.

The Obama administration agreed to reprocess the documents, but it continues to withhold many key details related to the Defense Department's use of torture methods. In some documents, the Obama administration has withheld details that were previously disclosed by the Bush administration.

More here.

ACLU seeks data on border laptop searches

The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a FOIA request for records on laptops searched by border officials, PC Magazine reported. ACLU says these searching practices raise questions concerning First and Fourth Amendment rights because "they involve highly intrusive governmental probing into a traveler's most private information." Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is expected to release updated guidelines regarding these border laptop searches in the next few months.

How many laptops have border officials searched at U.S. borders? The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wants to know.

The group filed a freedom of information (FOIA) request with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the Homeland Security Department requesting any and all records dating back to January 1, 2007.

"Disclosure of the requested information ... will further public understanding of the government's expansive exercise of search authority over all travelers, including U.S. citizens, passing through the country's international borders," the letter reads.

More here.

Senate creates process to ban release of detainee photos

The Senate passed two FOIA-related amendments to the appropriation bill, The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reported. The first "creates a process for the Secretary of Defense to certify to the president that the release of photos and videos taken between Sept. 11, 2001, and Jan. 22, 2009, of people captured by U.S. forces outside the United States would endanger lives." This would protect the photos from being released for at least three years. The second amendment requires new laws related to exemptions to specifically reference the FOIA.

The ACLU’s effort to get photos documenting the treatment of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan was halted by the Senate on Thursday night, in an amendment to the appropriations bill.

The Senate also agreed to require new laws that exempt information from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act to specifically reference the FOIA, making them easier for requesters to spot.

The two changes were part of the supplemental appropriations bill, which the House already passed. The House and Senate will now reconcile the two versions of the bill.

More here.

Obama fails three early tests

Could his promise have been too good to be true?

The Obama administration, which vowed to usher in a "new era of openness in our country," either has delayed action on requests for access to government records or refused to disclose them in three early, high-profile tests of the pledge.

This week, Justice Department lawyers announced that they'd continue to assert the state secrets argument made by the Bush administration in a lawsuit alleging that five men were tortured abroad in U.S.-run prisons.

In a separate case, the Obama Justice Department has agreed with the Bush administration — at least initially — that the news media shouldn't have immediate access to court records in the ongoing Guantanamo detainee litigation.

More here.

Obama reaffirms one of Bush's state security privileges

Several judges for the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals were shocked when Obama's administration agreed with the Bush administration's handling of a "case involving rendition and torture," The New York Times reported. It was argued that the state secret privilege was for national security reasons, prompting anger from the ACLU.

In a closely watched case involving rendition and torture, a lawyer for the Obama administration seemed to surprise a panel of federal appeals judges on Monday by pressing ahead with an argument for preserving state secrets originally developed by the Bush administration.

In the case, Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian native, and four other detainees filed suit against a subsidiary of Boeing for arranging flights for the Bush administration’s “extraordinary rendition” program, in which terrorism suspects were secretly taken to other countries, where they say they were tortured. The Bush administration argued that the case should be dismissed because even discussing it in court could threaten national security and relations with other nations.

During the campaign, Mr. Obama harshly criticized the Bush administration’s treatment of detainees, and he has broken with that administration on questions like whether to keep open the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. But a government lawyer, Douglas N. Letter, made the same state-secrets argument on Monday, startling several judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

More here.

Latest Torture Memo Released Under FOIA

In the Washington Post and a host of other papers came stories today of a 2002 memo, or bits and pieces of it anyway...

The American Civil Liberties Union yesterday released three heavily blacked-out documents it received as a result of its ongoing, four-year-old Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. One document is a previously undisclosed August 2002 memo to the CIA from the Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel, which essentially offers a guide to how to torture and get away with it.

Here's an excerpt:

"To violate the statute, an individual must have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering. Because specific intent is an element of the offense, the absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture. As we previously opined, to have the required specific intent, an individual must expressly intend to cause such severe pain or suffering. . . . We have further found that if a defendant acts with the good faith belief that his actions will not cause such suffering, he has not acted with specific intent. . . . A defendant acts in good faith when he has an honest belief that his actions will not result in severe pain and suffering. . . . Although an honest belief need not be reasonable, such a belief is easier to establish where there is a reasonable basis for it.

"Based on the information you have provided us, we believe that those carrying out these procedures would not have the specific intent to inflict severe physical pain or suffering. . . .

More here.

ACLU FOIA Request Yields Thousands of Pages

From the ACLU...

The American Civil Liberties Union today released thousands of pages of documents related to Navy investigations of civilians killed by Coalition Forces in Iraq, including the cousin of the Iraqi ambassador to the United States. Released today in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the ACLU filed in June 2006, these records provide a vivid snapshot of the circumstances surrounding civilian deaths in Iraq.

"At every step of the way, the Bush administration and Defense Department have gone to unprecedented lengths to control and suppress information about the human cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Nasrina Bargzie, an attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "Our democracy depends on an informed public and that is why it is so important that the American people see these documents. These documents will help to fill the information void around the issue of civilian casualties in Iraq and will lead to a more complete understanding of the prosecution of the war."

The ACLU obtained documents from eight Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigations. One of the files documents the investigation of the death of Mohammed al-Sumaidaie, a cousin of the Iraqi ambassador to the U.S, Samir al-Sumaidaie. In 2006, the ambassador accused Marines of "intentionally" killing his cousin and today's records shed light on al-Sumaidaie's NCIS investigation for the first time. Among the findings uncovered in this file are conflicting accounts of events, questions of credibility, possible command influence issues and cover-ups.

More here.