Constitutional Law

DOJ Defends Bush Efforts To Keep Documents Secret

The Obama administration has rankled civil liberties groups by defending some of the Bush administration’s efforts to keep scores of documents regarding controversial policies under wraps, USA Today and The Associated Press reports. According to the AP, “In half a dozen lawsuits, Justice lawyers have opposed formal motions or spurned out-of-court offers to delay court action until the new administration rewrites Freedom of Information Act guidelines and decides whether the new rules might allow the public to see more.”

For more than five years, the ACLU has sought memos from the Bush administration regarding its policies supporting harsh interrogations, rendition and domestic spying. Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project, said that the Obama administration “deserves credit for its disavowal of torture and for the commitment it has made to transparency, but the public has waited long enough for disclosures of these memos. These memos supplied the legal basis for the Bush administration’s torture and rendition programs; they are crucial to the historical record. The Obama administration wants to put the litigation on hold for months, but delay is not costless. There is public debate right now about the role of the CIA going forward and about accountability for the abuses of the last eight years. The immediate release of the memos would allow the public to participate more meaningfully in that debate.”

Although Attorney General Eric Holder has said that Bush administration’s efforts to limit transparency will be reviewed, the department last week defended in federal court the Bush administration’s use of the state secrets privilege to scuttle a federal lawsuit involving questions on rendition.

Full post as published by ACS Blog on February 17, 2009 (boomark / email).