Judge Urged Not to Ask About CIA Tapes
December 15th, 2007 . by TexasFredWASHINGTON (AP) - The Bush administration told a federal judge it was not obligated to preserve videotapes of CIA interrogations of suspected terrorists and urged the court not to look into the tapes’ destruction.
In court documents filed Friday night, government lawyers told U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy that demanding information about the tapes would interfere with current investigations by Congress and the Justice Department.
It was the first time the government had addressed the issue of the videotapes in court.
Kennedy ordered the administration in June 2005 to safeguard “all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees now at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.”
Five months later, the CIA destroyed the interrogation videos. The recordings involved suspected terrorists Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri
Government lawyers told Kennedy the tapes were not covered by his court order because Zubaydah and al-Nashiri were not at the Guantanamo military prison in Cuba. The men were being held overseas in a network of secret CIA prisons. By the time President Bush acknowledged the existence of those prisons and the prisoners were transferred to Guantanamo, the tapes had been destroyed.
Full Story Here:
Judge Urged Not to Ask About CIA Tapes
Personally, I have NO issue with what the CIA does with these people, if they can gather information that saves so much as 1 American life, what happens to our enemies is of NO consequence to me…
Even if Kennedy accepts the argument that government did not violate his order, he still could demand a hearing. He could raise questions about obstruction or spoliation, a legal term for the destruction of evidence in “pending or reasonably foreseeable litigation.”
You’d better be careful Judge, I don’t know how it works today, but in the past YOU could be the one to come up missing…
I know there has to be some oversight of the CIA, they can’t just run a loose operation and do as they please, there has to be some responsibility, but they can’t go about the job of protecting America with Congress and others constantly poking their noses into every move they make…
The solution?? I honestly have no idea other than for the CIA to go totally covert and stop the leaks regarding the happenings in secure locations and the leaks concerning operations…
I do know that during the Clinton administration the CIA and the U.S. military were cut to bare bones, and they have never fully recovered, and now the Dem controlled Senate and Congress is setting up a cut and bleed party once again, the only thing they lack to bring this into fruition is for the White House itself to back them and once again our military and Intel sources will take a massive hit…
I believe this stresses the reasons that we can’t let the Dems have the White House in ‘08, and why especially we can’t allow Hillary Clinton to ever walk thru the doors of the White House as anything other than a visitor, and even then she needs to watched closely, she steals stuff…
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According to accounts, the CIA destroyed the tapes to protect the identity of the agents doing the interrogations. We all know that if these tapes fell into the hands of Congress, they would be posted all over the internet. I know the agents can take care of themselves but they can’t be with their families 24/7 to protect them. An enemy with no morals and honor would go after their families in a heartbeat.
Besides, the American Public and Congress doesn’t need to know everything that’s being done to protect this country. Too much stuff has already been exposed by the media and politicians that have not only put us in danger but our troops too.
Where is 007 when you need him?
Actually Fred, it started way before that. The Carter Administration did a wonderful job of gutting our intelligence capabilities. An excellent book (EVERY bit as good as “The Looming Tower”) is “Legacy Of Ashes” by Tim Weiner. Not the kind of book you really want to read, but one you SHOULD read. We have sacrificed HUMINT (human intelligence) for every other bit of technology imagineable because it’s EASIER and less messy. But the BEST intelligence is and always shall be HUMINT — which is why we’re having a helluva time in the Middle East. No more than a handful of people in the entire FBI, for example, know how to speak Farsi.
Two points: waterboarding isn’t torture. Short of beheading someone like the Islamists do, I don’t feature torture. Whatever it takes to get the job done and, like you, save just ONE American life? Chalk it up into the “it’s worth it to me” category. Second point: BobF has much insight when he writes that, essentially, our society is WAY too transparent. And Islam and our enemies use this aspect AGAINST us every day.
BZ
You also make my point of: come 2008, I’m 1) showing up to vote and 2) voting for the persons with the (R) after their names. Because the stakes are just too high, as you so rightly point out.
BZ
You are right Fred,
they need to go back to being completly covert. Nobody knows anything about nothin’.
The info leaks are killing our CIA and FBI
I’ll have to come down on the side of the adminstratioin on this one. After all, the judge’s order explicitly orders them to safeguard: “all evidence and information regarding the torture, mistreatment, and abuse of detainees NOW at the United States Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay.†Those prisoners were NOT at Gitmo at that time… and for a few months after the judge’s order.
I’m no lawyer, but it seems to me, the tapes were not covered by that order. The fact that the judge did not know about the covert prisons is, well, TOUGH! It was a SECRET!
Longstreet