What is no longer classified? (and what does it portend for the credibility of governme... - 0 views
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The prosecution’s motion to amend the protective order in the 9/11 military commission is finally posted. As I discussed here, Judge Spath has granted a similar motion in the al-Nashiri case. Judge Pohl has yet to rule on this motion in the 9/11 case because the defense apparently intends to file at least one response to it. In an earlier post I explained why I think this development is very welcome and overdue. There’s another very noteworthy thing about the prosecution’s motion, as well: It enumerates those categories of information about the CIA’s rendition/detention/interrogation program that are no longer classified at all, and that therefore presumably can now be discussed even by those (unlike the detainees) who were properly subject to restrictions on disclosing such matters–including information about the treatment of all 119 individuals who were in CIA custody, to wit:
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• The fact that the former RDI Program was a covert action program authorized by the President in the September 17, 2001 Memorandum of Notification; • General allegations of torture by high-value detainees, unless such allegations reveal the identities (e.g., names, physical descriptions, or other identifying information) of CIA personnel or contractors, the locations of detention sites (including the name of any country in which the detention site was allegedly located), or any foreign intelligence service involvement in the detainees’ capture, rendition, detention, or interrogation; • The names and descriptions of the thirteen Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EITs) that were approved for use, and the specified parameters within which the EITs could be applied;
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• The techniques themselves as applied to the 119 individuals mentioned in Appendix 2 of the SSCI Executive Summary acknowledged to have been in CIA custody; • Information regarding the conditions of confinement as applied to those 119 individuals; • Information regarding the treatment of those 119 individuals, including the application of standard interrogation techniques; and • Information regarding the conditions of confinement or treatment during the transfer (“rendition”) of the 119 individuals.
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This is important for several reasons, not least of which is that it might mean that it is now permissible to release the vast majority of the complete, 6000-or-so-page SSCI Report. One other thing: The motion relates that in April 2012, in support of the Government’s motion requesting that Judge Pohl issue the protective order, the accompanying declarations of government officials set forth the “grave harm to national security that unauthorized disclosure of such information would cause.” I think it’s fair to say, now that such information has been disclosed, that these alarms were unwarranted and ill-advised. No grave harm has befallen the nation. And so it appears, at least, as though there never was a very good reason why these important categories of information about the RDI program could not and should not have been disclosed years ago.