ACLU to Get Abu Ghraib Torture Photos

By Jeralyn, Section War In Iraq
Posted on Thu Jun 02, 2005 at 09:51:58 PM EST
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We may finally get to the bottom of the Administration's "few bad apples" meme. The ACLU won another round in federal court today in its FOIA lawsuit.

A federal judge has ordered the Defense Department to turn over dozens of photographs and four movies depicting detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq as part of an ongoing lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

"These images may be ugly and shocking, but they depict how the torture was more than the actions of a few rogue soldiers," said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. "The American public deserves to know what is being done in our name. Perhaps after these and other photos are forced into the light of day, the government will at long last appoint an outside special counsel to investigate the torture and abuse of detainees."

Talk about chutzpah, the Administration invoked, of all things, the Geneva Conventions to argue against release.

Attorneys for the government had argued that turning over visual evidence of abuse would violate the United States's obligations under the Geneva Conventions, but the ACLU said that obscuring the faces and identifiable features of the detainees would erase any potential privacy concerns. The court agreed.

"It is indeed ironic that the government invoked the Geneva Conventions as a basis for withholding these photographs," said Amrit Singh, a staff attorney at the ACLU. "Had the government genuinely adhered to its obligations under these Conventions, it could have prevented the widespread abuse of detainees held in its custody in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay."

The Government has until June 30 to comply. The photos and some videos were originally made by SPC Joseph Darby, who pleaded guilty and cooperated against other Abu Ghraib guards.

The court order filed late yesterday requires the government by June 30 to reprocess and redact 144 detainee abuse photographs provided by Sergeant Joseph Darby to the Army's Criminal Investigation Command. The order also requires the government to provide the court with an estimate of the length of time it will take to reprocess and redact four movies included as part of the Darby collection by June 10. The decision comes after the court privately viewed eight of the images from the Darby collection to determine whether the photographs should be released under the FOIA. The ACLU expects redacted versions