Despite Obama pledge, Justice defends Bush secrets

[toomuchtime_]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite President Obama's promise of more open government, the Justice Department is resisting pressure to release documents the Bush administration kept secret about domestic wiretapping, data collection on travelers and U.S. citizens, and interrogation of suspected terrorists.

In half a dozen lawsuits, Justice lawyers are defending Bush administration decisions to withhold records from the public. They have opposed formal motions or spurned out-of-court offers to merely delay these cases until the new administration rewrites Freedom of Information Act guidelines and decides whether the new rules might allow the public to see more.

In only one case has the Justice Department agreed to suspend a FOIA lawsuit until the disputed documents can be re-evaluated under the yet-to-be-written guidelines. That case involves negotiations on an anti-counterfeiting treaty, not the more controversial, secret anti-terrorism tactics that spawned the other lawsuits as well as Obama's promises of greater openness.

"The signs in the last few days are not entirely encouraging," said Jameel Jaffer, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which filed several lawsuits seeking the Bush administration's legal justification for warrantless domestic wiretapping and for its treatment of terrorism detainees.

The documents sought in these lawsuits "are in many cases the documents that the public most needs to see," Jaffer said. "It makes no sense to say that these documents are somehow exempt from President Obama's directives."

Groups that advocate open government, civil liberties and privacy were overjoyed that Obama on his first day in office reversed the FOIA policy imposed by Bush's first attorney general, John Ashcroft. The Bush Justice Department said it would use any legitimate legal argument to defend withholding records from the public. Obama pledged "an unprecedented level of openness in government" and ordered new FOIA guidelines written with a "presumption in favor of disclosure."

But Justice's actions in courts since then have cast doubt on how far the new administration will go.

In a FOIA case seeking access to the FBI's rules for using its Investigative Data Warehouse — a computer database containing 1 billion searchable documents about Americans and foreigners — Justice lawyers told a district court here Thursday, "It is not clear that the new guidelines, once issued, will be retrospective to FOIA requests that the agency already has finished processing."

Some other cases in which the Holder Justice Department is supporting Bush administration decsions to withhold information:

_A case seeking documents about the Automated Targeting System used by Customs officers to screen all travelers leaving or entering the country.

_A case seeking records of lobbying by telecommunications companies to get legal immunity for cooperating in warrantless domestic wiretapping.

_A case seeking Justice's legal opinions justifying that wiretapping. One of the plaintiff attorneys, Meredith Fuchs, of the National Security Archive, a private group that publishes formerly classified government documents, said, "I'm somewhat surprised they did not take the opportunity to look at these again, but maybe it's because the administration doesn't have all its top Justice appointees in office yet."

_Three cases seeking Justice legal opinions about detention and interrogation of terrorism detainees. Civil division attorney Caroline Wolverton wrote the ACLU's Jaffer that Justice would proceed "consistent with the principles" in Obama's FOIA order "and also with due regard for the legitimate confidentiality interests of the executive branch and the national security interests of the United States."

Even if the new administration reviews Bush decisions [under new FOIA guidelines], there's no guarantee it will reach different decisions.

Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder announced a review of every court case in which the Bush administration invoked the state secrets privilege, a separate legal tool it used to have lawsuits thrown out rather than reveal secrets. The same day, however, civil division attorney Douglas Letter cited that privilege in asking an appeals court to uphold dismissal of a suit accusing a Boeing Co. subsidiary of illegally helping the CIA fly suspected terrorists to allied foreign nations that tortured them.

Letter said that Obama officials approved his argument.

The Associated Press: Despite Obama pledge, Justice defends Bush secrets

 

[rayboyusmc]

It's still too early to see what they go after.