This Spring, the U.S. government was on the verge of turning over 21 photographs documenting detainee abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq. The District Court ordered the disclosure, the Appeals Court agreed, and the Justice Department decided not to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. But then, abruptly, the U.S. changed its mind and asked the Supreme Court to accept the case for review. This week, the ACLU, along with Human Rights Watch, the International Center for Transitional Justice, Amnesty International, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press urged the Supreme Court not to take the case. Though it is exciting when colleagues get to argue at the Supreme Court, the ACLU’s opposition brief makes it very clear why Supreme Court review is unnecessary in this case. The government’s arguments against disclosure in this case range from unwise to laughably inappropriate. As just one example, the government has argued that disclosing photographs of prisoners being abused by U.S. personnel would violate the prisoners’ Geneva Convention rights. Of course, we all remember that President Bush declared that these detainees did not have any rights under the Geneva Convention, and it took years of litigation (all the way to the Supreme Court) to convince them otherwise. The truth about U.S. mistreatment of detainees is going to come out sometime--better we should get the truth now so that we can avoid repeating the past.
