Human Right Groups Charge Documents Reveal CIA Stonewalled
Congressional Oversight Committees; CIA Says Many Documents too Sensitive
to Release
NEW YORK and WASHINGTON, April 23 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) must stop stonewalling congressional
oversight committees and release vital documents related to the program of
secret detentions, renditions, and torture, three prominent human rights
groups said today. Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), the Center for
Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the International Human Rights Clinic at
NYU School of Law (NYU IHRC) reiterated their call for information,
following the CIA's filing of a summary judgment motion this week to end a
lawsuit and avoid turning over more than 7000 documents related to its
secret "ghost" detention and extraordinary rendition program. This motion
is in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed in
federal court last June by these groups. The organizations will file their
response brief next month.
Among other assertions, the CIA claimed that it did not have to release
the documents because many consist of correspondence with the White House
or top Bush administration officials, or because they are between parties
seeking legal advice on the programs, including guidance on the legality of
certain interrogation procedures. The CIA confirmed that it requested --
and received -- legal advice from attorneys at the Department of Justice
Office of Legal Counsel concerning these procedures.
"For the first time, the CIA has acknowledged that extensive records
exist relating to its use of enforced disappearances and secret prisons,"
said Curt Goering, AIUSA senior deputy executive director. "Given what we
already know about documents written by Bush administration officials
trying to justify torture and other human rights crimes, one does not need
a fertile imagination to conclude that the real reason for refusing to
disclose these documents has more to do with avoiding disclosure of
criminal activity than national security."
The CIA's admission that it possesses at least 7000 documents relating
to rendition, secret detention and torture generated renewed calls by the
human rights groups for transparency and accountability from the
government.
"The Freedom of Information Act is one of the major checks on
government criminality in this country," said CCR Executive Director
Vincent Warren. "The CIA has acknowledged that it has well over 7000
documents that relate to the torture and disappearance of men. These
include some of our clients, like Majid Khan, who were known to be in the
program. The public needs to know what crimes were committed in our name
and how they were justified. This has been the most secretive, least
transparent administration in history, and it is well past time for
accountability."
AIUSA, CCR, and NYU IHRC have filed FOIA requests with several U.S.
government agencies, including the CIA. These FOIA requests sought
information about individuals who are -- or have been -- held by the U.S.
government or detained with U.S. involvement, and about whom there is no
public record. The requests also sought information about the government's
legal justifications for its secret detention and extraordinary rendition
program. Comprehensive information about the identities and locations of
prisoners in CIA custody -- as well as the conditions of their detention
and the specific interrogation methods used against them -- has never been
publicly revealed. This lack of transparency continues to prevent scrutiny
by the public or the courts and leaves detainees vulnerable to abuse and
torture.
Although the CIA did release a paltry number of documents in response
to the FOIA request, most were already in the public domain, such as
newspaper articles and a single copy of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which
governs the treatment of civilians in times of war. The limited relevant
documents that were released were documents pertaining to briefings
demanded by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees regarding various
aspects of the overseas detention and interrogation program.
Documents released to plaintiffs by the CIA demonstrate that many
within the government itself have been unable to obtain accurate
information from the CIA. These documents, which include letters from
Members of Congress to the CIA, demonstrate a pattern of withholding
information from Congress. In a pointed bipartisan letter on October 16,
2003, then-Chair and Ranking Member of the House Select Committee on
Intelligence requested that CIA Director George Tenet provide senior level
briefings on the treatment of, and information obtained by, three men known
to be held in secret CIA detention, admonishing the CIA by stating that the
committee was "frustrated with the quality of the information" provided in
past briefings.
The CIA appears to have avoided answering detailed requests for
specific information, responding instead with form letters and references
to briefings. These practices led to a forceful letter from Senator Carl
Levin, Current Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, (then
the Ranking Member) who was attempting to investigate CIA involvement in
detainee deaths. In a letter dated Oct. 24, 2005, Senator Levin noted that
"[t]he lack of CIA cooperation with the investigations to date has left
significant omissions in the record." The CIA's failure to cooperate with
members of Congress demonstrates the need for public scrutiny of the secret
detention and extraordinary rendition program under FOIA.
"The CIA has employed illegal techniques such as torture, enforced
disappearances, and extraordinary rendition," said Meg Satterthwaite,
Director of the NYU IHRC. "It cannot use FOIA exemptions as a shield to
hide its violations of U.S. and international law."
In its legal filings, the CIA acknowledged that this program "will
continue." Some prisoners have been transferred to prisons in other
countries for proxy detention where they face the risk of torture and where
they continue to be held secretly, without charge or trial. Human rights
reports indicate that the fate and whereabouts of at least 30 people
believed to have been held in secret U.S. custody remain unknown.
In September 2006, President Bush publicly acknowledged the existence
of CIA-operated secret prisons. At the same time, 14 detainees from these
facilities were transferred to Guantanamo and several more have arrived
since. The administration has admitted to using so-called "alternative
interrogation procedures" on those held in the CIA program, including
waterboarding. The international community and the United States, in other
contexts, have unequivocally deemed these techniques torture.
For more information or copies of the CIA's legal filings and released
documents, please contact ssingh@aiusa.org, jnessel@ccrjustice.org or
opgenhaffen@juris.law.nyu.edu.
For more information about the organizations involved, please see their
websites: http://www.amnestyusa.org, http://www.ccrjustice.org, or http://www.chrgj.org. To see
the most recent documents from this CIA filing, go to
http://www.ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/cia-foia-documents.
CIA admits they will continue rendition program, which allows torture overseas
Documents show they expected legal challenges from the start The Central Intelligence Agency knew from the beginning that its secret detention and torturous interrogation tactics probably bordered on illegal from the start, according to new documents identified through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. In a filing yesterday, the CIA said it had identified 7,000 pages of classified memos, emails and other records relating to President Bush's secret detention and interrogation program. Human rights groups quickly jumped on the filing -- which came after their own Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking information about those detained. The CIA also acknowledged in their filings that the program “will continue.” Terror suspects detained or "renditioned" by the United States are transferred to third party countries that allow torture which gives the US a legal loophole to allow harsh interrogation without being legally liable. Such suspects, who effectively disappear, are held without access to courts. The US has refused to produce a list of the suspects it is holding in sites overseas, and only recently provided a list of those held captive at Guantánamo Bay. Amnesty International says at least 30 people are believed to still be held in secret prisons. In 2006, President Bush muted dissent surrounding the program by announcing that he would transfer 14 "high-value" detainees to Guantánamo Bay. The filing also shows that the agency sought legal advice from the White House Office of Legal Counsel numerous times over several years. "The CIA's purpose in requesting advice from OLC was the very likely prospect of criminal, civil, or administrative litigation against the CIA and CIA personnel who participate in the Program," Ralph S. DiMaio, information review officer for the CIA's clandestine service, said in the documents. Such proceedings, he added, would "be virtually inevitable." Nineteen documents were withheld; the Bush Administration cited "presidential communications privilege." The withholding of documents under presidential privlige has been a common practice of the Bush Administration -- but its decision to do so in this case appears a tacit acknowledgment of the high-level interaction between Bush advisors and CIA officials. The filing says that some of the withheld documents were "authored or solicited and received by the President's senior advisors in connection with a decision, or potential decision, to be made by the president." Rights groups say CIA is hiding criminal activity Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the International Human Rights Clinic at NYU School of Law were the key litigants seeking the documents made the claim following a summary judgment motion by the agency. “For the first time, the CIA has acknowledged that extensive records exist relating to its use of enforced disappearances and secret prisons,” Curt Goering, AIUSA senior deputy executive director, said in a statement yesterday. “Given what we already know about documents written by Bush administration officials trying to justify torture and other human rights crimes, one does not need a fertile imagination to conclude that the real reason for refusing to disclose these documents has more to do with avoiding disclosure of criminal activity than national security.” RAW STORY was the first news outlet to identify the exact location of one of the sites in the CIA's secret prison network, which was revealed first by the Washington Post. Raw Story identified a prison in northeastern Poland, Stare Kiejkuty, that was used as a transit point for terror suspects. Once a Soviet-era compound once used by German intelligence in World War II, Stare Kiejkuty is best known as having been the only Russian intelligence training school to operate outside the Soviet Union. Its prominence in the Soviet era suggests that it may have been the facility first identified – but never named – when the Washington Post’s Dana Priest revealed the existence of the CIA’s secret prison network in November 2005. The groups say that they're not the only ones being stonewalled. Congress, they say, is getting the short end of the stick as well. "Documents released to plaintiffs by the CIA demonstrate that many within the government itself have been unable to obtain accurate information from the CIA," the groups said. "These documents, which include letters from Members of Congress to the CIA, demonstrate a pattern of withholding information from Congress. In a pointed bipartisan letter on Oct. 16, 2003, then-Chair and Ranking Member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence requested that CIA Director George Tenet provide senior level briefings on the treatment of, and information obtained by, three men known to be held in secret CIA detention, admonishing the CIA by stating that the committee was 'frustrated with the quality of the information' provided in past briefings." “The CIA has employed illegal techniques such as torture, enforced disappearances, and extraordinary rendition,” said Meg Satterthwaite, Director of the NYU IHRC. “It cannot use FOIA exemptions as a shield to hide its violations of U.S. and international law.”
CIA has begun to lose, destroy documents Two recent reports signal that the agency has begun to destroy evidence of harsh interrogations conducted at US prisons. Last year, the CIA acknowledged it had destroyed videotapes of two interrogations they were asked to provide to the Sept. 11 commission. Earlier this week, the erstwhile director of interrogations at Guantánamo Bay said records of a prisoner who accused his captors of torturing him had been destroyed. "Retired general Michael Dunlavey, who supervised Guantánamo for eight months in 2002, tried to locate records on Mohammed al-Qahtani, accused by the US of plotting the 9/11 attacks, but found they had disappeared," the Guardian writes. "The records on al-Qahtani, who was interrogated for 48 days - "were backed up ... after I left, there was a snafu and all was lost."
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