Ed Brayton writes about the U.S. government losing a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) case and being required to turn over images of prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Brayton has the legal analysis, but I want to draw attention to this portion:
When the case was filed, the first argument the government offered - and this is stunning chutzpah even for the Bush administration - was that turning over the photos would violate the privacy of the detainees pictured in the photos.
Say what now?! You claim that these detainees are so bad that they should held in legal limbo and denied the protections of the U.S. Constitution and the Geneva/Hague Conventions, but all of a sudden, you're worried about protecting their privacy? Are you kidding me?
The really galling part is that this isn't the first time this bizarre argument has been tried: while trying Gitmo prisoners, the government denied the media access to parts of a prisoner's testimony (mostly regarding psychotropic drugs he may have been given), claiming, of all things, that doing so would be a violation of HIPAA.
Welcome to Guantanamo Bay. Sure, you'll have no rights to challenge your detention; but dammit, at least your medical records will be safe.
January 20th can't come soon enough. A few more leaps of logic like this, and my head is likely to explode.
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