UPDATE: Maneuvering over photos case
on Oct 8, 2009 at 5:53 pm
UPDATE Friday a.m. The American Civil Liberties Union, challenging the federal government’s plea for delay in the case over detainee abuse photos, urged the Supreme Court Thursday simply to turn aside the government petition and let the case play out in lower courts. The fact that Congress may be about to change the law is “no reason for delay,” the ACLU said in a letter (found here).
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The Obama Administration, noting that it is likely to get from Congress what it was asking the Supreme Court to provide, urged the Justices on Thursday to postpone for now a case on the government’s authority to keep confidential scores of photos of abuse of detainees held by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan, in a letter, notified the Court of lawmakers’ apparent agreement to write into law the position that President Obama wants to take against forced disclosure of the photos.
If Congress completes action on a provision in a new Homeland Security funding bill, Kagan wrote, “it now appears likely the Secretary of Defense will have legal authority to exempt the photographs at issue in this lawsuit from disclosure under FOIA [the Freedom of Information Act].”
The Second Circuit Court had ordered release of the photos under FOIA. At one point earlier, the President had agreed to allow the photos to be released and not to test the issue in the Supreme Court. However, after getting strong pleas from military leaders, the President changed his mind. The government then appealed the case to the Supreme Court (Defense Department v. American Civil Liberties Union, 09-160). The Court was scheduled to consider the petition at Friday’s private Conference. That is no longer likely.
