Weasels at Work

"The Obama administration believes giving the imminent grant of authority over the release of such pictures [detainee abuse] to the defense secretary would short-circuit a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act," reported the Associated Press on Saturday.

It was with this new strategy in mind that the administration asked Supreme Court justices to stay their decision on the photos' release, allowing Congress time to vote on dictating the authority solely to the secretary of defense.

  Raw Story

Why would that make a difference? Wouldn’t the lawsuit apply to the DOD? Or is the DOD not named in the lawsuit, and that means the whole thing is simply passed around like a hot potato while the ACLU adds the DOD to it?

The president additionally said the photos were not particularly sensational when compared to photos of prisoner abuse that sparked the Abu Ghraib scandal.

Yes, and at the time, I wondered if that were true why he was so intent on hiding them. I understand now that the real issue is that the photos do not come from Abu Ghraib and would reveal the fact that the government was lying when it said the “abuse” of prisoners was not widespread nor backed by military/government policy, but only the aberrant acts of a few disturbed soldiers who have been duly punished.

UPDATE: A little clarification, I think.

On January 21, Obama signed an executive order instructing all federal agencies and departments to "adopt a presumption in favor" of Freedom of Information Act requests and promised to make the federal government more transparent.

[...]

The US District Court for the Southern District of New York ordered the release of the photos in a June 2005 ruling that was affirmed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in September 2008. The Obama administration indicated earlier this year it would abide by a court order and release at least 44 of the photographs in question, but President Obama backtracked, saying he conferred with high-ranking military officials who advised him that releasing the images would stoke anti-American sentiment and would endanger the lives of US troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

As Truthout previously reported, the Obama administration petitioned the US Supreme Court to hear the case at the same time the president privately told Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) and Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) he would work with Congress to help get a measure passed aimed at blocking the photographs from being released.

[...]

Conferees on the Senate and House Appropriations Committees released a Homeland Security spending bill summary, which includes a provision that would allow President Obama to authorize "the Secretary of Defense to bar the release of detainee photos," essentially exempting the images from Freedom of Information Act requests.

[...]

"Congress should not give the government the authority to hide evidence of its own misconduct, and if it does grant that authority, the Secretary of Defense should not invoke it," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project.

  TruthOut

Like that would happen.

And let me say it again – this business of attaching amendments to bills that have little or nothing to do with the bill has got to stop. In this case, the provision to keep the photos secret is attached to a Department of Homeland spending bill. Other attachments to that appropriations bill (which will apparently be voted on next week) include a provision to keep Gitmo detainees from being sent to the US, a provision to have the Secretary of Agriculture work with the DHS in research on livestock diseases, a provision for dealing with spouses of immigrants who die during the adjudication of their VISA permissions, and a provision for three year VISA extensions for religious workers, rural-serving doctors, and investor programs. I wonder if those religious workers include Muslims.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.