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Judge May Question CIA Agents About Tapes | |
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THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW - January 21, 2008
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Judge May Question CIA Agents About Tapes
By Alan Feuer
The New York Times
A federal judge in New York said Thursday that he was
"disappointed" in how investigators from the Central
Intelligence Agency had handled videotapes documenting
the harsh interrogation of detainees from Al Qaeda,
adding that he was considering questioning agency
officials who had watched the tapes about why they had
made no record of them in their files.
The judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein of Federal District Court
in Manhattan, said from the bench that he was astonished
that the C.I.A. investigators had not kept records about
the tapes, which were destroyed in 2005, even though they
were an important part of an internal C.I.A. review of
interrogation methods.
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"I'm asked to believe that actual motion pictures, video-
tapes, of the relationship between interrogators and
prisoners were of so little value" that no record of them
was kept in C.I.A. investigative files, Judge Hellerstein
said.
"I just can't accept it," he said. "If it came up in an
ordinary case, it would not be credible."
The tapes are now the subject of Congressional hearings and
form the basis of a separate criminal investigation seeking
to determine whether agency officials broke the law by
destroying them or by concealing their existence. They
showed agency operatives using harsh interrogations methods
on two Qaeda detainees, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim
al-Nashiri.
The hearing in New York stemmed from another matter concern-
ing the tapes. The American Civil Liberties Union has filed
a freedom of information request, asking the C.I.A. to
produce information about the tapes and various other
documents related to interrogation methods.
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Judge Hellerstein said he was inclined to deny an A.C.L.U.
request to hold the C.I.A. in contempt of court for not
producing information about the tapes. But he said he was
considering ways, including subpoenas, to determine why
the C.I.A. had not given the documents to the A.C.L.U.
The main issue at the hearing was the C.I.A.'s contention
that the tapes were immune from a freedom of information
request because they were in the agency's secret and
sprawling operational files. Under federal law, documents
in operational files are not subject to freedom of
information requests but documents in investigative files
are.
Lawyers for the A.C.L.U. argued that even though the tapes
were not physically in investigative files kept by the
C.I.A.'s Office of the Inspector General, officials from
that office watched the tapes at a clandestine location
overseas, in 2003, as part of the internal review of
interrogation methods. Judge Hellerstein said the mere fact
that the tapes had been watched as part of the internal
review meant that they were part of an investigation and,
thus, subject to a freedom of information request.
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In fact he had stern words for a government lawyer, Peter
M. Skinner, who argued that the C.I.A. had searched the
investigative files and, even though officials had found
nothing related to the tapes, had therefore fulfilled its
obligations to the A.C.L.U.
Judge Hellerstein raised the possibility that C.I.A.
officials had intentionally not placed the tapes in
the investigative files so as to avoid a freedom of
information request.
"It seems to me that you were gulled," he told Mr. Skinner,
"and that the court was gulled."
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