Court Backs Secrecy for 9/11 Detainees

[Adam D]

Court Backs Secrecy for 9/11 Detainees

By TED BRIDIS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The government properly withheld names and other details about hundreds of foreigners who were detained in the months after the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday, deferring to administration warnings about continued threats from terrorists.


In a 2-1 ruling that represented a victory for President Bush (news - web sites) and Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites), a panel from the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (news - web sites) for the District of Columbia determined that disclosing information could give terrorists dangerous insight into the government's Sept. 11 investigation.


Federal judges who are asked to compel such disclosures should defer to White House concerns that they might help the nation's enemies, the appeals panel said.


"America faces an enemy just as real as its former Cold War foes, with capabilities beyond the capacity of the judiciary to explore," wrote U.S. Circuit Judge David B. Sentelle. He said judges are "in an extremely poor position to second-guess the executive's judgment in this area of national security."


Ashcroft called the ruling "a victory for the Justice Department (news - web sites)'s careful measures to safeguard sensitive information about our terrorism investigations."


In a harsh dissenting opinion, Circuit Judge David S. Tatel accused his colleagues of "uncritical deference to the government's vague, poorly explained arguments for withholding broad categories of information about the detainees."


Tatel, appointed by President Clinton (news - web sites) in 1994, said the decision to withhold the information prevents U.S. citizens from learning whether the Bush administration "is violating the constitutional rights of the hundreds of persons whom it has detained in connection with its terrorism investigation."


Sentelle, appointed in 1987 by President Reagan, and Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, appointed by Bush's father in 1990, ruled that the list of names could "constitute a comprehensive diagram of the law enforcement investigation."


The decision was the latest in a string of legal victories in U.S. courts for the administration. The government has so far largely withstood challenges to its broad use of a powerful surveillance law, its closing of immigration hearings and its use of enemy combatant laws to prosecute U.S. citizens accused of ties to terrorists.


The latest courtroom battle focused on information about at least 762 foreigners who were inside the United States illegally and were detained following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. More than 500 have been deported so far.


A recent audit by the inspector general at the Justice Department found "significant problems" with the detentions, including allegations of physical abuse. Civil liberties groups have noted that only one of those detained, Zacarias Moussaoui, has been charged with any terrorism-related crime.


Ashcroft told lawmakers this month that some of the foreigners "had strong links to the terrorists," but that in some cases evidence was insufficient or too sensitive to bring criminal charges.


Ashcroft has publicly described one detainee as a roommate of one of the hijackers; another acknowledged training in a terrorist camp in Afghanistan; another traveled from New York on Sept. 11 with a pilot's license and flight materials; and another was found with 30 photographs of the World Trade Center and papers that Ashcroft described as "Jihad materials."


The new appeals decision rejected arguments by the Center for National Security Studies and other public interest groups that the Justice Department should publicly provide the names of the detainees, names of their lawyers, dates they were picked up and the reasons they were detained.


"We're disappointed that for the first time ever, a U.S. court has sanctioned secret arrests," said Kate Martin, a lawyer for the center. She said the organization plans to pursue the case.


The court affirmed that the information can properly be withheld under an existing exemption in the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. That provision exempts information if it's compiled for law enforcement purposes and if revealing it "could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings."


"It's disturbing that the court takes the position that the war on terrorism trumps all other considerations," said David B. Sobel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, who also participated in the case.





Said dissenting judge Tatel: "Just as the government has a compelling interest in ensuring citizens' safety, so do citizens have a compelling interest in ensuring that their government does not, in discharging its duties, abuse one of its most awesome powers, the power to arrest and jail."

The appeals decision did not refer directly to the inspector general's findings critical of the detentions, although lawyers said they sent a copy of the audit report to the appeals court before Tuesday's ruling.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ordered the government last August to release detainees' names but delayed enforcing her order to let the government appeal. Kessler also had ruled that the Justice Department could withhold the other information.

Tuesday's appeals decision, however, permits the Bush administration to withhold the names of the foreigners and their lawyers.

[Adam D]

How about making intelligence agencies do their job and allowing civil rights to be protected?

[Element4040]

I have mixed feelings on this one. Personally I don't see how releasing their names is going to help the terrorists. I'm sure they already know which ones are missing.

I don't think it's particularly necessary yet to let the public know what they are telling their interogators, as I could see the Governments point of view on that one. But at some point in time they are going to have to. It is giving America too much of a black eye to hold these individuals indefinetely without convicting them of a crime.

Japenese in WWII anyone?

[Element4040]

Originally posted by E-brake
Well you make a good point with the names, but as far a information like anything it will be released when the threat is removed. A lot of the old cold war files have been recently declassified because the threat in those areas is no longer present. At some point when the information is no longer valid for current events that 9/11 investigation info will also be released.

As far as the Japenese WWII camps at the time those worked out very well. They completely halted japosese and German spies, as well as sabatoge (a major problem at the beginning of WWII)

Those camps were not all that bad, not like prisions, or death camps. Munster Texas was the German camp where they shipped all the Germans from the Southern US, they made a thriving community and stayed after the war. The germans are still thee to this day. A few more terrorist acts in the US, and I dont think it would be a bad idea to restrict middle eastern born forigeners to designated rual areas untill the terrorism stops.

I agree and that's why it doesn't bother me that much about them not revealing the interrogation details. It really doesn't concern the general public anyway.

That is a good point about Muenster though, I used to go up there for Oktoberfest. Great food and a cool little town. I'm sure though at the time, they were not too happy about being put in camps, and I still don't think it's the right thing to do. But then again it was done on a much larger scale then the arrests of the present.

[bfp]

How about making intelligence agencies do their job and allowing civil rights to be protected?

if there were to be a mass attack against the united states coming from a certain country, you wouldnt allow racial profiling to track these guys down? that would be suicide.

[Adam D]

Originally posted by bfp
if there were to be a mass attack against the united states coming from a certain country, you wouldnt allow racial profiling to track these guys down? that would be suicide.

No. White people don't get bothered by racial profiling because it doesn't happen to them. After OKC and Timothy McVeigh, nobody was screaming about racial profiling white people, no call for registering white people, no deportation of white immigrants, no spying on fundamentalist christian churches, no calls against terrorism, no calls to break up militias or crack fundamentalist organizations in this nation.

But apparently there should have been.

[bfp]

No. White people don't get bothered by racial profiling because it doesn't happen to them. After OKC and Timothy McVeigh, nobody was screaming about racial profiling white people, no call for registering white people, no deportation of white immigrants, no spying on fundamentalist christian churches, no calls against terrorism, no calls to break up militias or crack fundamentalist organizations in this nation.

thats because your an idiot adam. if there were sufficient evidence that arab citizens(or any foreign or american citizen for that matter) that are in the united states in certain cities had a nuclear weapon and were ready to detonate it and kill hundreds of thousands of people, and the gov't couldnt track the people down because of political correctness, the blood would be on your hands, you fool. the aclu and their political correctness(whether they know it or not) will lead to the demise of this country in this time of war. fucking shit like that pisses me off.