See No Evil
Sara Adams
Undergraduate/Political Science
Does it help if we close our eyes?
The Obama Administration is appealing, to the Supreme Court, a court order to release photographs of torture. Obama’s reasoning: "I want to emphasize that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib," he said. "It's therefore my belief that the publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals." This position is a reversal; previously Obama planned to release the photographs.
None of Obama’s reasoning holds any water. If it’s true that these photographs aren’t nearly as bad as Abu Ghraib, then there is no reason to conceal them. If they are minor outrages the public will react to them like minor outrages. (Although one might be nostalgic for the days when all forms of torture were considered “sensational.”) However, others believe the photos show torture was more widespread then previously believed, and the ACLU has referred to the photos “profoundly disturbing.” If that’s true than that’s all the more reason to release the photos. Given that every Bush-era document we declassify exposes new levels of degradation, our benefit of the doubt has to lie with the ACLU on this one. However, regardless, of the extent of torture portrayed, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the president is legally required to release the photographs. Under the FOIA, federal agencies must release requested federal documents, except for under certain exceptions.
Even more foolish is the idea that releasing the photographs would “not add any additional benefit to our understanding.” Releasing information always adds to our understanding, withholding information obviously leaves us in the dark. And so unfortunately, it’s easy to see Obama’s refusal to release the photos for what it is: a naked power grab for executive privilege and secrecy. If these photographs aren’t released it creates a precedent of not releasing documents and photographs he may want to keep secret. Which enables and suggests all kinds of sinister possibilities.
The FOIA and its enforcement is a centerpieces of government accountability in this country. It enables our ability to know our government’s actions, something so basic I feel like I’m in a badly written dystopia, where people actually ask “Why am I allowed to know what the people I’ve voted for have done?” Perhaps we should only be allowed to read campaign literature. All that other stuff isn’t benefitting our understanding all that much. If the understanding we’re going for is the president’s message, undiluted by the raw images of what has been done in the name of the United States of America.
As justification, Obama and others who favor withholding the photographs are invoking national security, that God we found in the War on Terror, and now worship before anything else. Obama promised us he was ok with other religions, but this behavior suggests otherwise. The claim is that it might create anti-American sentiments, and therefore endanger the troops. The argument that information damages national security is only valid when it provides sensitive information about troop movements or covert operations and operatives. It can’t be invoked anytime the information might make someone angry at us, or we’ll simply cease to be a free state. I’m sure you could make an argument that this article itself, could inflame anti-American sentiments abroad, endangering the troops. If we let it, the net for what might “endanger the troops” can be widened to a huge range of documents and media. Making all of this a whole lot worse, Obama’s reversal on releasing these photographs is among a string of 180s on due process including adopting the Bush interpretation of the states secret doctrine, and plans for an indefinite detention law. All have been justified with similar rhetoric about national security.
And so if we’re asking ourselves if withholding this kind of information makes us any safer, it’s time that we ask ourselves out loud if life in a police state would be safer. As well as if this is the kind of cost-benefit analysis we really want to be running. There is always the possibility that some piece of information will be harmful in a tangential or even direct way. However, for the longest time we believed that ignorance---of our own country’s actions, no less!-- was the greater threat.
Further, Obama’s eagerness to explain the imaginary rainbow he sees in every dark cloud has become boring when it’s not sickening. In this case it’s the way he’s all about transparency, except for the part where the American people know what’s going on. There’s seeing all sides of an issue, and then there’s outright lying.
When we don’t know what our military and CIA are doing with those we detain and interrogate we have been essentially blindfolded by a president who is sheparding us through dark corridors past people in cells who have been there for years. And we’re not stopping to look.