Iraq war

via New Torture Photos Being Released By Obama.

The Obama administration will release more photos of Bush era prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan to satisfy demands from an ACLU Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, according to a Thursday ACLU press release.

From the ACLU press release:

(snip) Since the ACLU’s FOIA request in 2003, the Bush administration had refused to disclose these images by attempting to radically expand the exemptions allowed under the FOIA for withholding records. The administration claimed that the public disclosure of such evidence would generate outrage and would violate U.S. obligations towards detainees under the Geneva Conventions.

However, a three judge panel of the appeals court in September 2008 rejected the Bush administration’s attempt to use exemptions to the FOIA as “an all-purpose damper on global controversy” and recognized the “significant public interest in the disclosure of these photographs” in light of government misconduct. The court also recognized that releasing the photographs is likely to prevent “further abuse of prisoners.” The Bush administration subsequently requested that the full Court of Appeals rehear the case. That request was denied on March 11, 2009.

It is astounding to me that the Bush administration used the flimsy defense that they could not release certain information because it would cause public outrage. That is tantamount to an admission of guilt. They knew what they were doing would produce recriminations – lawsuits and such.

Slave trade.

It has been this kind of thinking that kept slave trade alive for hundreds of years. What happens on the plantation, stays on the plantation. But once Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published depicting the torture of slaves – violà – public outrage. The parallel here is a strong one. All this was bound to surface no matter how crafty the Bush administration thought it was it surfaced anyway just as the mistreatment of slaves surfaced. You can’t hide a crime forever.

Bush and Co®. did everything under the sun to try to hold information from the public. Project Censored has published a concise recap of the Bush administration’s methods of secrecy and denial of FOIA requests. They used delay tactics, instructed their agency heads to deny all FOIA requests if there was a technical reason to do so, and also engaged in “an aggressive policy of questioning, challenging and denying FOIA requesters’ eligibility for fee waivers, using a variety of tactics. Measures include narrowing the definition of “representative of news media,” claiming information would not contribute to public understanding”.

Personally, I am proud that the Obama administration has made a strong commitment to transparency and openness. It is fitting to assume that they have nothing to hide, while the previous administration hid everything.