Judge Hellerstein's Opinion

[NATO AIR]

oh yea, this guy is an ACLU commie-terrorist loving "hate America" wackjob"
sure don't look like it from here.

one good thing out of all of this... in america, rulings like this are appealed (and this one was) and these appeals take time. It may be a year or two before the photos are released. Those expecting instant disaster will have to be let down gently, as it will be a good while before these are released.

hat tip belgravia dispatch
http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/archives/004783.html

Judge Hellerstein:

The terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan do not need pretexts for their barbarism; they have proven to be aggressive and pernicious in their choice of targets and tactics. They have driven exploding trucks into groups of children at play and men seeking work; they have attacked doctors, lawyers, teachers, judges and legislators as easily as soldiers. Their pretexts for carrying out violence are patent hypocrisies, clearly recognized as such except by those who would blur the clarity of their own vision. With great respect to the concerns expressed by General Myers, my task is not to defer to our worst fears, but to interpret and apply the law, in this case, the Freedom of Information Act, which advances values important to our society, transparency and accountability in government.
More:

Suppression of information is the surest way to cause its significance to grow and persist. Clarity and openness are the best antidotes, either to dispel criticism if not merited or, if merited, to correct such errors as may be found. The fight to extend freedom has never been easy, and we are once again challenged, in Iraq and Afghanistan, by terrorists who engage in violence to intimidate our will and to force us to retreat. Our struggle to prevail must be without sacrificing the transparency and accountability of government and military officials. These are the values FOIA was intended to advance, and they are at the very heart of the values for which we fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is a risk that the enemy will seize upon the publicity of the photographs and seek to use such publicity as a pretext for enlistments and violent acts. But the education and debate that such publicity will foster will strengthen our purpose and, by enabling such deficiencies as may be perceived to be debated and corrected, show our strength as a vibrant and functioning democracy to be emulated.
Shorter Hellerstein: Sunlight is the best disinfectant. And strong societies let the sun shine in.

To wit, the judge quotes the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan who, in turn, quotes George Kennan:

[A] huge proportion of the government’s effort at classifying is futile anyway. Let [George F.] Kennan have the last word. In a letter of March 1997 he writes: “It is my conviction, based on some 70 years of experience, first as a government official and then in the past 45 years as an historian, that the need by our government for secret intelligence about affairs elsewhere in the world has been vastly overrated.”…
A case can be made…that secrecy is for losers. For people who don’t know how important information really is. The Soviet Union realized this too late. Openness is now a singular, and singularly American, advantage. We put it in peril by poking along in the mode of an age now past. It is time to dismantle government secrecy, this most pervasive of Cold War-era regulations. It is time to begin building the supports for the era of openness that is already upon us.

 

[William Joyce]

Alvin wouldn't put the rapist of his daughter in jail.