"No democracy has ever been made stronger by concealing evidence of its wrongdoing"

By GottaLaff

This piece by Jameel Jaffer opened my eyes to some new arguments against suppressing the release of photos of detainees being tortured... and to my surprise, even more:

Absent an unexpected groundswell of opposition, Congress this week will pass legislation that gives the Defense Department the authority to suppress evidence of its own misconduct.

Again, guess who originally came up with this amendment: Everyone's favorite, Traitor Joe Lieberman!

The amendment is aimed at a 2008 appeals court decision requiring the Defense Department to release photographs showing Afghan and Iraqi prisoners being abused and in some cases tortured by U.S. military personnel. Its ramifications will be sweeping and will extend far beyond the specific lawsuit it is meant to quash.

The ramifications alert was new to me. Read on for more:

The legislation is meant to substitute Congress' judgment for that of the courts. [...]

The basic purpose of the FOIA, the Supreme Court has previously recognized, is "to ensure an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to check against corruption and to hold the governors accountable to the governed." As the appeals court in the current case observed, the photos "place government accountability at the center of the dispute."

Please read the article to get more details. I'm trying to abide by the rules and not copy over too much here, but the info is so important.

I got into it with my family about this. They stood by the government argument that releasing the photos would enrage our enemies, cause more hostility, and create more violence. I see our rights and the rule of law as the priority, so their argument didn't sway me, although I see their point.

Suppressing such records might deprive the country's enemies of propaganda, but it would also deprive the American public of information that is crucial to the democratic process.

Here comes the part about ramifications:

The legislation would suppress many more photos in government custody than the ones at issue in the ACLU case. It covers images taken between Sept. 11, 2001, and Jan. 22, 2009, that relate to the treatment of individuals "engaged, captured or detained" by the armed forces. It would cover photos depicting the abuse of prisoners, but it could also cover, for example, video footage of aerial attacks that resulted in civilian casualties or photos showing the conditions of confinement at the Bagram detention center in Afghanistan. The legislation establishes a regime of censorship that would extend to many images of the military's activities abroad.

Again, there's a lot more to this than I'm posting here.

Supporters of the legislation have said that the bill is motivated by concerns about security, but no democracy has ever been made stronger by concealing evidence of its wrongdoing. The last administration's decision to endorse torture undermined the United States' moral authority and compromised its security. The failure of the country's current leadership to fully confront the abuses of the last administration -- a failure embodied by the legislation that Congress is preparing to enact -- will only compound these harms.

Here is the rest.

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All my previous posts on this subject matter can be found here; That link includes audio and video interviews with Lt. Col. Wingard, one by David Shuster, one by Ana Marie Cox, and more. My guest commentary at BuzzFlash is here.

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard is a military attorney who represents Fayiz Al-Kandari in the Military Commission process and in no way represents the opinions of his home state. When not on active duty, Colonel Wingard is a public defender in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

If you are inclined to help rectify these injustices: Twitterers, use the hashtag #FreeFayiz. We have organized a team to get these stories out. If you are interested in helping Fayiz out, e-mail me at The Political Carnival, address in sidebar to the right; or tweet me at @GottaLaff.

If you'd like to see other ways you can take action, go here and scroll down to the end of the article.

Then read Jane Mayer's book The Dark Side. You'll have a much greater understanding of why I post endlessly about this, and why I'm all over the CIA deception issues, too.

More of Fayiz's story here, at Answers.com.