Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal News Blogs -> JURIST - The Paper Chase

Legal News

: JURIST - The Paper Chase

CIA destroyed 92 interrogation tapes: DOJ

By Bernard Hibbitts (editor) and University of Pittsburgh School of Law students.

[JURIST] The US Department of Justice (DOJ) acknowledged Monday that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has destroyed 92 videotapes of terrorism suspect interrogations. The acknowledgment came in response to an August 2008 judicial order that the CIA turn over information regarding the tapes or provide specific justifications on why it could not release the information. A stay on that order expired last week, and in a letter to the court, US Attorney Peter Skinner wrote that the DOJ now intends to provide as much of the information as possible, as well as justifications for omissions. The court seeks descriptions of the destroyed tapes; any ancillary summaries, transcripts, or reconstructions of their content; and the names of those individuals who had either viewed or possessed the tapes. Skinner requested that the DOJ be given until March 6 to provide the court with a schedule under which it can provide the information. The August 2008 order came in response to a December 2007 American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)  motion that the CIA be held in contempt of court for not providing information on the tapes during a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought by the organization in an effort to access government materials on the interrogations. The DOJ is also conducting a criminal probe  into the destruction of the tapes.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on March 03, 2009 (boomark / email).