'We Tortured Some Folks," But, American People, Don't Bother Asking For Full Report, Judge Rules
A federal judge ruled Thursday that the Senate’s nearly 7,000-page report on the CIA’s torture practices during interrogations in the wake of 9/11 will not be made public, marking a setback for civil liberties advocates.
So far, Senate leaders have only released the 480-page executive summary of the so-called torture report, which revealed numerous gruesome details about the CIA’s post-9/11 interrogation practices. The fate of the full report has been up in the air, however, since Republicans took control of the Senate during the most recent midterm elections.
Washington, DC US District Judge James E. Boasberg, in his 26-page decision, said the complete report compiled by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the related “Panetta review,” are exempt from the dictates of the Freedom Information Act. He said the Senate Committee report remains under congressional control and Congress made sure to exempt itself from FOIA requests.
“Congress has undoubted authority to keep its records secret, authority rooted in the Constitution, longstanding practice, and current congressional rules,” Boasberg stated.
read more: http://rt.com/usa/261025-cia-torture-report-no-release/
Courthouse News Service:
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington sided with the government Thursday, though he warned that the case was "no slam dunk."
Feinstein's letter accompanying the copy sent to the White House "does not evince congressional intent to surrender substantial control over the Full SSCI Report," Boasberg said. "While it does bestow a certain amount of discretion upon the agencies to determine how broadly to circulate the report, such discretion is not boundless. Most significantly, the dissemination authorized by the letter is limited to the Executive Branch alone. It plainly does not purport to authorize the agencies to dispose of the Report as they wish - e.g., to the public at large."
Congress frequently transmits documents to the Executive Branch so that relevant agencies can make internal use of them, but that transmittal cannot be interpreted as a broad abdication of control, the judgment says.
"At the end of the day, the ACLU asks the Court to interject itself into a high-profile conversation that has been carried out in a thoughtful and careful way by the other two branches of government," Boasberg wrote. "As this is no trivial invitation, it should not be blithely accepted. Absent more convincing evidence that the SSCI report has 'passed from the control of Congress and become property subject to the free disposition of the agenc[ies] with which the document resides,' the court must hold that it remains exempt from disclosure under FOIA. To be sure, plaintiff - and the public - may well ultimately gain access to the document it seeks. But it is not for the court to expedite that process."
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