Rights Groups Challenge CIA for Failure to Release More Than 7000 Documents Relating...

Rights Groups Challenge CIA for Failure to Release More Than 7000 Documents
Relating to Secret Detention, Rendition, and Torture Program

Groups Charge CIA with Covering up Improper Activity, Not Protecting National
Security

NEW YORK and WASHINGTON, June 26 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) must no longer be allowed to use classification
arguments in its attempts to prevent the disclosure of illegal or embarrassing
conduct in its secret detention, torture, and rendition programs, three
prominent human rights groups said today. The statement came just hours after
they collectively filed a motion to require the CIA to make certain
information public and to provide more details about all the documents
withheld.

The groups -- Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), the Center for Constitutional
Rights (CCR), and the International Human Rights Clinic at NYU School of Law
(NYU IHRC) -- filed the motion on the evening of June 25th, 2008 in the
Southern District of New York, where the case is being heard. The lawsuit was
filed in June 2007 under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), after repeated
attempts to obtain information from the CIA had failed.

"Our government cannot just 'disappear' people and on top of that, not be
forced to account for its actions. That is the stuff of the most brutal
dictatorships and it should not be the legacy that this country creates," said
CCR Staff Attorney Emi MacLean. "Moreover, the CIA's claim that legal advice
sought on torture techniques is covered by privilege is a perversion of the
law: there is no privilege that covers illegal activity."

The filing came in opposition to a CIA motion for summary judgment to end a
FOIA lawsuit filed in federal court last June and avoid turning over more than
7000 documents related to its secret "ghost" detention and extraordinary
rendition programs. The groups argue that the CIA has not provided enough
information to the court to justify keeping thousands of records secret and
the suit must be allowed to go forward. They also allege that the agency has
at times selectively disclosed some of the information for political gain and
seeks to keep secret even information that President Bush and CIA Director
General Hayden have already made public.

In its motion for summary judgment, the CIA claimed that it did not have to
release the documents because many involve the President or the DOJ or CIA
lawyers who oversaw the program. The CIA confirmed that it requested - and
received - legal advice from attorneys at the Department of Justice Office of
Legal Counsel concerning various interrogation techniques. This latest brief
argues that there is no privilege covering illegal activities.

The filing is accompanied by a comprehensive account of what is known to date
about the U.S. rendition, secret detention, and interrogation program, in the
form of a 78-page declaration by IHRC's Margaret Satterthwaite. The
declaration - which also contains several hundred pages of exhibits - details
government statements and publicly available information collected about the
CIA's program, providing a coherent picture of how much has already been made
public about the program and precisely how it operates.

"Our declaration shows how systematic, widespread, and well-orchestrated the
CIA's program of torture, enforced disappearances, and extraordinary
renditions really is," said Margaret Satterthwaite, Director of the NYU IHRC.
"The CIA must be held to account by being forced to disclose vital information
to the American people, who have a right to know about illegal techniques like
torture and rendition being used in their name by the U.S. government."

AIUSA, CCR, and NYU IHRC filed FOIA requests with several U.S. government
agencies, including the CIA, seeking information about the government program
of secret or irregular detention.

"What is the United States government trying to hide? Unlawful or disgraceful
conduct are not legitimate reasons to keep the American public in the dark
about what the Bush administration is doing under the guise of securing public
safety," said Curt Goering, AIUSA senior deputy executive director. "The
pattern of deceit and executive secrecy of the administration only compounds
concerns about human rights violations that the U.S. government may have
authorized and even encouraged."

The CIA earlier released some a small number of documents in response to the
FOIA request. Many were already in the public domain, such as newspaper
articles and, ironically, a single copy of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which
governs the treatment of civilians in times of war. Among the documents that
were newly released, however, were documents pertaining to congressional
oversight of the program by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.
These documents demonstrate both that a limited number of legislators were
aware of the program since soon after its inception, but also that there were
bipartisan expressions of concern expressed behind closed doors.

Regardless of these and other concerns, in its legal filings, the CIA has
acknowledged that this program "will continue." Some prisoners have been
transferred to prisons in other countries for proxy detention, where they face
the risk of torture and where they continue to be held secretly, without
charge or trial. Human rights reports indicate that the fate and whereabouts
of more than two dozen people believed to have been held in secret U.S.
custody remain unknown.

For more information about the organizations involved, please see their
websites: www.amnestyusa.org, www.ccrjustice.org, or www.chrgj.org.

To see the most recent documents from this case, as well as the prior filings
and the documents previously released through this litigation, go to
http://www.ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/cia-foia-documents.

To read the full declaration that accompanied the filing, go to
http://www.chrgj.org/projects/docs/jun08declaration.pdf

SOURCE Amnesty International

Sharon Singh, AIUSA, +1-202-544 0200 x 289, ssingh@aiusa.org; Jen Nessel, CCR,
+1-212-614-6449, jnessel@ccrjustice.org; or Veerle Opgenhaffen, NYU
IHRC/CHRGJ, +1-212-992-8186, opgenhaffen@juris.law.nyu.edu