Most likely, the members of the task force are worried about the changes to detention and interrogation policy because they may limit their ability to act without warrant, without legal permission, and without lack of restrictions if the reports recommend the guidelines which the actions of the Bush Administration should compel one to make the moral argument for.
Let's suppose that we should continue to fight the so-called "war on terror," why should it be permissible for the best and brightest experts on detention and interrogation to miss and extend this deadline? How long should Americans and the world have to wait for a government to return to the so-called "moral high ground" that routinely committed acts of lawlessness during the past eight or nine years?
This delay is not without context. The Obama Administration has proven over the past six months to be okay with continuing the lawlessness and secrecy that was emblematic of the Bush Administration.Â
The Obama Administration is fighting an August 31st deadline that they set for the release of a 2004 CIA Inspector General report on the "enhanced interrogation program."
The release of the report has been delayed a few times and was, in fact, delayed earlier this month. The report was released in 2008 and then entirely redacted.
The Obama Administration claims that the Justice Department just cannot get through "the volume of material it needs to go through" before the deadline.
Oh, please. Hire a few interns interested in a job and future with the CIA. Have them read the documents and write out what is detailed. This seems like the perfect opportunity for indoctrination.
Of course, the ACLU responded with a little bit of logic and reasoning:Â
"The CIA has already had more than five months to review the inspector general's report, and the report is only about two hundred pages long. We're increasingly troubled that the Obama administration is suppressing documents that would provide more evidence that the CIA's interrogation program was both ineffective and illegal. President Obama should not allow the CIA to determine whether evidence of its own unlawful conduct should be made available to the public. The public has a right to know what took place in the CIA's secret prisons and on whose authority."
Also, the Obama Administration chose to oppose the release of detainee photos in May because, according to President Obama, they would "further inflame anti-American opinion" and endanger our troops. Obama also feared the photos would have a chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse."
Jonathan Hafetz of the ACLU found the argument against the release of the photos to have "no validity" and said, "Secrecy is fundamentally inconsistent with American values and the rule of law. It undermines not enhances our security to try to shield abuses that we have committed from the public eye."
The law and our nation's highest esteemed values run opposite to Obama's support of secrecy, secrecy which allows lawlessness to continue unopposed and unchallenged.
In the midst of allegations of CIA misconduct, shouldn't the Obama Administration start meeting deadlines and stop fighting the release of information?
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