Torture

A federal judge in New York recently halted enforcement of a controversial section of an anti-terrorism bill that the court found harms First Amendment rights. Plaintiffs to the case included noted activists, journalists and a member of Icelandic parliament who argued the law had a chilling effect.

A federal judge on Tuesday refused to hold the CIA in contempt for destroying video tapes sought as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit designed to shed light on the agency’s interrogation program.

In a ruling from the bench, U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein criticized the CIA for ignoring a court order requiring the agency to preserve the tapes, but stopped short of holding the agency in contempt.

One day after the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional a 1999 law banning videos depicting animal cruelty, the congressman who originally wrote the statute announced his intention to introduce animal cruelty legislation that is more narrowly tailored, The Los Angeles Times reported.

The Central Intelligence Agency released email messages on Thursday that reveal the former director of the agency approved of -- and joked about -- the decision made by top officials to destroy hundreds of tapes depicting the abusive interrogation of detainees in U.S. custody, The New York Times reported.

A federal judge in New York City on Wednesday denied for the second time the American Civil Liberties Union's request for access to CIA documents about interrogation techniques, the Associated Press reported.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday vacated and remanded a federal appeals court ruling that ordered the the release of photos depicting abuse of detainees in U.S. custody.

In an effort to salvage a favorable federal appellate court ruling on the Freedom of Information Act, the American Civil Liberties Union urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to refuse the government's request to vacate the court order requiring release of images depicting abuse of detainees in U.S. custody abroad.

President Obama signed legislation Thursday that blocks the release of photos that depict the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody. The new law is expected to thwart any chance the Supreme Court will hear the case over whether the photos should be disclosed to the public.

The Homeland Security Appropriations bill Obama signed grants the Department of Defense authority to withhold the photos.

The long-fought battle to release images depicting the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody appears over after Congress passed legislation today that specifically exempts them from public disclosure.

The images were initially the center of a denied request under the Freedom of Information Act, that later became the subject of a lawsuit -- which dragged on for years -- and recently were dropped into the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill as an amendment specifically exempting them from the law in an effort to supersede court decisions on the issue.

In a letter today, the Solicitor General Elena Kagan informed the Supreme Court that the House of Representatives voted yesterday to agree to the conference report on the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill, which exempts the release of abuse photos of detainees in U.S. custody. The bill passed by a vote of 307 to 114.