Friday, 30 September 2011 12:20 Tom Fitton
"Only lawsuits can reveal how tax payers are footing the bill for Michelle Obama's luxury trips, and transparency is non-existent in the killing of bin Laden, while ACORN tries to "disappear" through an identity change to protect the guilty...."
"Obama Refuses to Release bin Laden Death Photos in JW Lawsuit Judicial Watch Releases Special Report “The Rebranding of ACORN” More on Michelle Obama’s Family Trip to Africa Obama Refuses to Release bin Laden Death Photos in JW Lawsuit"
"Well, the Obama administration has responded in court regarding Judicial Watch's pursuit of the CIA's bin Laden death photos.· And given the administration's open hostility to government transparency, it probably does not come as a surprise that the CIA is fighting tooth-and-nail to keep these photos secret.
Judicial Watch had filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Obama Department of Defense (DOD) seeking the following records: “[A]ll photographs and/or video recordings of Osama (Usama) bin Laden taken during and/or after the U.S. Military operation in Pakistan on or about May 1, 2011.” (We filed an identical request with the CIA.) When the government stonewalled, we sued. Now we’re in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia trying to force the release of the photos.
The DOD says it came up empty in response to our request, though I have good reason to believe that the Pentagon didn’t look hard enough. But the CIA admitted it found 52 responsive records (photos and video). Here’s a description of what they found according to the government’s most recent court filing:
These records contain images of Osama bin Laden’s body after he was killed. Many are graphic and gruesome, as they depict the fatal bullet wound to bin Laden’s head. Some of the images were taken inside the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where bin Laden was killed. Other images were taken as bin Laden’s body was transported from the Abbottabad compound to the location where he was buried at sea. Several images depict the preparation of Osama bin Laden’s body for the burial as well as the burial itself.
So they have the photos and videos we’re after for sure. But the agency refuses to release them to the public. Why? Well, this time they’re hiding behind the vague “implications to national security” they claim could result. “The mere release of these images of Osama bin Laden could be interpreted as a deliberate attempt by the United States to humiliate the late al-Qa’ida leader…,” the government argued in its brief.
But the then-CIA director himself, Leon Panetta, did not seem overly concerned at all about these implications in an interview with NBC’s Brian Williams on May 3, 2011, just two days after the raid: “The government obviously has been talking about how best to do this, but I don't think there was any question that ultimately a photograph would be presented to the public.” (Panetta is now Secretary of Defense.)
I should point out that Judicial Watch has heard this “national security” argument before. Remember our fight for the footage of American Airlines Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon on 9/11? The DOD had the videos but claimed their release could be detrimental to national security. Well, we won in court, obtained the videos, and none of those vague “implications” ever materialized."
Isn't that what Obama promised?
To make Lawyers richer, and Unions more powerful?
