Judge suspects CIA duped court in destroying tapes

Source: Reuters

A U.S. judge deciding if the CIA should be held in contempt for destroying video tapes of interrogations of suspected Islamist militants said on Thursday he believed the court had been deceived by the agency.

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein was responding to arguments by the American Civil Liberties Union, which accused the Central Intelligence Agency of flouting a court order by destroying the tapes after Freedom of Information Act requests filed by the ACLU in 2003 and 2004.

Hellerstein said he found it "hard to believe" the tapes did not produce any notes or markers that could have been turned over. Government lawyers argued that the videotapes were the subject of a CIA "special review" of the detention program, not an investigation, and were therefore held in operational files not included in the court order.

"If there are hundreds of hours of videotape it's inconceivable to me that someone doing a special review or investigation of what is going on would not make a summary," Hellerstein said in Manhattan federal court.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080117/pl_nm/security_cia_hearing_dc

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Judge Chides CIA on Interrogation Tape
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-7235146,00.html

I hope the judge watches his back, CIA is evil :hi:

'it' obeys it's masters

That has never been clear...is Poppy still able to pull strings, or has his idiot son cut them all?

Remember, sources and methods are secrets.

Now that intelligence has been outsourced, does that mean the secret budgets are still secret? Private groups are handling the most critical information of a Nation, and we can't even know how much we are paying them, directly or indirectly (ops)?

certainly John Tenet didn't have much say.

Does Judge Hellerstein really need to deliberate on this one? Start locking people up. About 13 months from now, you're going to hear constant bleating about the "rule of law," and these sorts of shenanigans will be conveniently forgotten as the slumbering pound puppies of the media wake up and finally do their jobs again.

x y and z" and then x y and z say "not me it was......" and then we get an investigation ? How how does something like this work?

CIA Faulted for Destruction of Interrogation Videotapes
Friday January 18, 3:02 am ET
Mark Hamblett, New York Law Journal


A federal judge will not hold the CIA in civil contempt for the 2005 destruction of videotapes of the interrogation of high level al-Qaida detainees -- but only because it would not do any good.

Southern District of New York Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein expressed disgust Thursday over the destruction of the tapes, which he said likely violated his own September 2004 order to preserve information in a case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act.

~snip~

During a hearing in lower Manhattan, however, Hellerstein said it would serve no purpose to hold the agency in contempt, other than to create "a newspaper headline."

Instead, he said, he would focus on a remedy, one that might include requiring current and former CIA personnel and other government officials who had seen the tapes to produce any written notes or summaries.

The judge also raised the possibility of issuing subpoenas if necessary to former agency personnel to secure their testimony.

more:http://biz.yahoo.com/law/080118/0beac4e327cf92f5f9a06a799c514098.html?.v=1