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CIA director says release of interrogation documents would harm national security

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

[JURIST] Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Leon Panetta said Monday that the release of agency documents describing detainee interrogations would damage national security. In an affidavit filed with the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Panetta said that the release of CIA records would be more inflammatory than Department of Justice (DOJ) memos authorizing enhanced interrogation techniques because they pertain to actual interrogations, whereas the memos were purely theoretical. Panetta also defended the destruction of 92 videotapes of terrorism suspect interrogations, and the classification of records about the tapes, because their disclosure would implicate sources and methods of gathering intelligence. Panetta filed the affidavit in connection with a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in 2003 seeking the disclosure of all information related to detainees held overseas by the United States under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Last month, US President Barack Obama defended his decision not to disclose Department of Defense (DOD) photographs and other documents related to detainee treatment. The ACLU's suit has resulted in the release of numerous government documents, including redacted memos, authored by the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which provided the legal rational for CIA interrogation techniques.

Full post as published by JURIST - The Paper Chase on June 09, 2009 (boomark / email).