Uh oh. The ACLU asked the CIA to stop stalling on production of the CIA IG report. And now the CIA has invented a reason to stall until the August 31 deadline that Hellerstein has given them – they want to review the 318 other documents it owes the ACLU first.
As we explained to the Court and Plaintiffs when Plaintiffs first raised the prospect of expediting the Special Review Report, the Report poses unique processing issues. It is over 200 pages long and contains a comprehensive summary and review of the CIA’s detention and interrogation program. The Report touches upon the information contained in virtually all of the remaining 318 documents remanded for further review. Although the Government has endeavored in good faith to complete the review of the Special Review Report first, as we have gone through the process, we have determined that prioritizing the Report is simply untenable. In this instance, we have determined that the only practicable approach is to first complete the review of the remaining 318 documents, and then apply the withholding determinations made with respect to the information in those documents to the Special Review Report. One month into that process, we have concluded that we must review all of the documents together, and that the review will take until August 31, 2009.Shorter the CIA: Obama said we have to make this stuff public. So we’re going to buy ourselves two more months until we make it public. If Judge Hellerstein allows them.
Update: The ACLU’s Jameel Jaffer responds:
The CIA has already had more than five months to review the inspector general’s report, and the report is only about two hundred pages long. We’re increasingly troubled that the Obama administration is suppressing documents that would provide more evidence that the CIA’s interrogation program was both ineffective and illegal. President Obama should not allow the CIA to determine whether evidence of its own unlawful conduct should be made available to the public. The public has a right to know what took place in the CIA’s secret prisons and on whose authority.
By these standards, Bernie Madoff is an honorable man. He got away with his crime for a long time, but when he saw the writing on the wall, he turned himself in, plead guilty, and went to jail quietly. Oh yeah, he said he was sorry:
There is nothing I can do that will make anyone feel better for the pain and suffering I caused them, but I will live with this pain, with this torment for the rest of my life. I apologize to my victims. I will turn and face you. I am sorry. I know that doesn’t help you.
There’s something terribly wrong with the C.I.A. being in charge of vetting this report – fundamentally wrong. This is a Report about the C.I.A.’s Torture Program. What we know about it is that it’s critical of that Program. They have been terrified about being called to task for what they did in that program. Now, they’re the ones who get to say what part is released? How absurd is that? And as the first comment to emptywheel‘s post says:
So if Hellerstein says “no dice” and forces them to release it forthwith, will they simply release another mostly redacted version? What will Hellerstein’s response likely be?
And then, there’s another piece of news from emptywheel today. A new reason not to turn over Dick Cheney’s Grand Jury testimony in the Valerie Plame case [Cheney Interview: The New Jon Stewart-Worthy Excuses]. If it’s released, future Grand Poo-Pas will be reluctant to cooperate with Grand Juries. The obvious counter is that maybe releasing his testimonies will inform future Grand Poo-Pas to act lawfully in office so they won’t be called to task later. It’s why we put bad guys in prison – to keep them off the streets and to hope they’ll think twice next time before the do their deed.
The operative old saying here is, "Don’t do the Crime, if you can’t do the time." It’s a better choice that the one Bush couldn’t remember, "Fool me once, Shame on you. Fool me twice, Shame on me." But that one applies too. These people [Cheney, the C.I.A.] have hidden in the cracks too many times! We’re onto them.
I suppose that we all get mad at the safeguards for the criminal in the Law when we’re on the victim side of the equation. But in both of these decisions, the Law is clearly being perverted. The A.C.L.U. is making the correct argument here:
President Obama should not allow the CIA to determine whether evidence of its own unlawful conduct should be made available to the public. The public has a right to know what took place in the CIA’s secret prisons and on whose authority.
I agree that the CIA shouldn’t be allowed to withhold evidence of its own wrong-doing.
But it goes deeper than that. It calls into question the whole matter of having a government program that operates on the margins — and sometimes beyond the rule of law. Everyone knows the CIA does things we can’t really condone.
We’ve closed our eyes to assassinations and foment coups in other countries on the grounds that sometimes “you have to just do what has to be done.” Or, as dick cheney would say, “you have to go over to the dark side.”
Do we really need/want to have such a unit operating in our name?
It’s easy to sit here at my keyboard (in the past, I would have said “in my armchair”) and say no way, it’s not moral or ethical and I don’t want us to do bad things in the name of good.
But I have not had the responsibility of trying to keep us safe in a hostile world.
On the other hand, maybe the world wouldn’t be so hostile to us if we had not time and again gone into other countries and worked to change their governments.
I am deeply disappointed with the actions of the Obama administration regarding the above. I think Cheney has been playing people in the Bush and Obama administrations like a fine tuned fiddle. I’ve had enough of Cheney and his devious partner Mr Addington for a lifetime ( what’s left of it).