The ACLU filed an emergency motion with a federal judge to stop the new GOP chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee from repossessing the full-length version of a revealing inquiry into CIA torture.
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) has requested the White House and various executive agencies “immediately” return copies of the 6,700-page report, which Burr says was inappropriately transmitted by his predecessor, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). Feinstein disputes that characterization.
The ACLU and other human rights groups charge that Burr’s request is an attempt to keep the findings of the report under wraps permanently. As Politico points out: “Who maintains legal control of the report could be critical to whether and when it is made public.”
“If Defendants transfer the report to Senator Burr, the ACLU faces the real threat of never securing the release of a document to which it is entitled by law,” ACLU lawyers wrote in the emergency motion (pdf) filed late Tuesday in connection with a pending Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
“The Final Full Report is the product of the most significant investigation into the most egregious CIA abuses in at least a generation,” the motion went on. “Public release of the Final Full Report is necessary for ‘an informed citizenry, vital to the functioning of a democratic society, needed to check against corruption and to hold the governors accountable to the governed’.”
As ACLU attorney Hina Shamsi told the Guardian: “The full torture report is critical for meaningful public scrutiny of the CIA’s horrific acts, as well as its lies and evasions to Congress, the courts, and the American public.”
However, “[s]hould Burr take hold of the existing copies of the classified report, it would shut off legal channels for public disclosure, as Congress has immunized itself from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA),” the Guardian explains.
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