Yesterday, the ACLU filed a FOIA lawsuit to compel the CIA to disclose two reports on the CIA’s post-9/11 detention and interrogation programs. The full complaint can be read here.
The fist report, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee’s (SSCI) Study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program was approved by SSCI on December 12th of last year. Upon the approval of the report last year, Chair of the SSCI, Senator Dianne Feinstein, stated:
“The report uncovers startling details about the CIA detention and interrogation program and raises critical questions about intelligence operations and oversight . . . I strongly believe that the creation of long-term, clandestine ‘black sites’ and the use of so-called ‘enhanced-interrogation techniques’ were terrible mistakes. The majority of the Committee agrees.”
The second report, issued by the CIA in June, was the Agency’s rebuttal to the SSCI report. When released, it was called “the most detailed defense that the CIA has assembled to date” of its detention and interrogation programs. Neither of these reports have been publicly released.
The ACLU’s complaint covers in detail the factual background of its previous, unsuccessful attempts to obtain the two reports through separate FOIA requests to the CIA. The complaint also charges that the CIA has “fail[ed] to make a reasonable effort to search for the record sought by [the ACLU’s FOIA requests] and that the CIA’s “failure to promptly make available the records sought by the [r]equests violates FOIA.”
For more, a full statement from the ACLU on the lawsuit can be found on their website.