Why am I not surprised #554?
1) Judge Orders U.S. to Release Files on Abu Ghraib
A federal judge in New York, complaining that the Bush administration "shows an indifference" to the freedom of information laws, has ordered the Pentagon and other agencies to produce a list of all their documents on the detentions at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq by Oct. 15.
The ruling, issued yesterday by Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein in Federal District Court in Manhattan, came in a suit filed July 2 by the American Civil Liberties Union. The group sued after the federal government failed to provide any relevant documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act request it made on Oct. 7, 2003.
The request was for documents about the treatment and deaths of detainees while in United States custody in Iraq, among other subjects. The group provided a list of 70 priority documents, all of which were mentioned in public reports or press accounts.
In his ruling, Judge Hellerstein wrote that the "glacial pace" of the government's response "fails to afford the accountability of government" that the freedom of information laws require. On Aug. 17 the judge had ordered the government to start producing the 70 documents, but none have been released.
2) Judge Orders U.S. to Find Bush Records
WASHINGTON - A federal judge has ordered the Pentagon to find and make public by next week any unreleased files about President Bush's Vietnam-era Air National Guard service to resolve a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by The Associated Press.
U.S. District Judge Harold Baer Jr. handed down the order late Wednesday in New York. The AP lawsuit already has led to the disclosure of previously unreleased flight logs from Bush's days piloting F-102A fighters and other jets.
[...]
Through a series of requests under the federal open records law and a subsequent suit, the AP uncovered the flight logs, which were not part of the records the White House released earlier this year.
The fact of the matter remains, however: Bush said that he "fulfilled" his national guard obligations. The White House has claimed time and time again that they've released ALL pertinent documents. But why is it that Shrub can't account for the lost months of April-Oct 1972? Perhaps those papers are stored within the same troves as the Abu Ghraib documents.
posted by claudine |Added at
5:41 PM| |
politics, bush military record, FOI, abu ghraib
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