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The CIA can hide statements from imprisoned suspected terrorists that the agency tortured them in its set of secret prisons, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
Chief Judge Royce Lamberth of the Washington D.C. Circuit Court declined to review the government’s assertions that the allegations of torture from men held in the CIA’s black site prisons — whether truthful or not — would put the nation at risk of grave danger if allowed to be made public.
“The Court, giving deference to the agency’s detailed, good-faith declaration, is disinclined to second-guess the agency in its area of expertise through in camera review,” Lamberth wrote, referring to a procedure where a judge looks at evidence in his chamber without showing it to the opposing side.
So the CIA says it doesn’t torture, and despite evidence to the contrary this judge depends on the Agency’s “good-faith declaration” and won’t even look at the detainees’ assertions of torture to determine if the CIA had a bona fide National Security claim (which one has to assume could not be based on the security implications of revealing of torture techniques, since torture is illegal).
But the CIA also says the detainees are lying about torture, so why not allow the release of at least the lies? How does that hurt national security? How can lies (at least detainees’ lies) be a matter of national security that needs to be classified?
The CIA made a point of noting that some of the allegations of torture were untrue, but had to be redacted anyways, because blacking out the truth and allowing false statements would let a clever prisoner paint an inverse picture of CIA torture techniques.
Judge Lamberth deferred to that argument.
“Improbable though this might seem, it is conceivable,” Lamberth wrote.
So a detainee is going to lie about torture techniques in such a way that future terrorist detainees can get a hold of the ACLU report, before they’re captured, and tell by the “untrue” reports of torture techniques what the actual enhanced interrogation techniques are used, and then steel themselves against those techniques?
The CIA obviously thinks we’re all as stupid as Sarah Palin.
Least surprising of all the above:
Judge Lamberth also served as the presiding judge of the nation’s secret spying [FISA] court from 1995 to 2002. He was reportedly the first judge to learn that the Administration was spying on Americans without following the law, but says there’s nothing to worry about.
We are so full of shit as a country it’s a wonder the rest of the world doesn’t band together to eliminate the stench.
We can’t stop working on November 5. We have to push Obama to redeem this country by reversing BushCo’s cynical and devastating culture of torture, lies and secrecy.
Approving all FOIA requests related to torture, black sites and illegal wire taps during the last 8 years would be a great place to start. What do you think, Senator Leahy?