Lies and videotape (no sex ... yet)

The NYTimes has an article this morning discussing the CIA's decision last year to destroy videotapes of interrogations the agency had conducted with terrorism suspects. The agency destroyed the tapes during a period when it's secret detention practices were under investigation, and the tapes were never handed over to either the 9/11 commission, Congress or to the courts - all of which, at different times and for different reasons had made requests for information which the tapes would seem to have fallen into.

Legal concerns were among the major motivating factors to destroy the tape was:

"The videotapes showed agency operatives in 2002 subjecting terrorism suspects — including Abu Zubaydah, the first detainee in C.I.A. custody — to severe interrogation techniques. The tapes were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that video showing harsh interrogation methods could expose agency officials to legal risks, several officials said."

So, to be clear, the CIA engaged in activities it knew were, at best, skirting the edge of the law, and likely well beyond what the law would permit. It apparently disregarded legitimate requests from both our judiciary and our elected officials to turn the tapes over, and finally decided to destroy the evidence so as to not suffer (or limit) any potential consequences which might derive from their actions.

This isn't the first set of interrogation tapes to be lost. Tapes of interrogations of Jose Padilla conveniently went missing when they were requested as evidence earlier this year as part of his criminal case. But wait! There's more! As Glenn Greenwald documented last spring, this administration has compiled a lengthy list of documents and other evidentiary items which have wandered off or "been overlooked" or "accidentally deleted" or what-have-you at times coincidentally most convenient to the administration itself, and least convenient to whatever investigating body wanted them.

Of course, destruction of evidence only needs to be relied on when Executive Privilege claims simply won't do.

Still, I am sure there are some number of members of the alleged party of "personal responsibility" (as long as, you know, members of a Republican administration aren't actually held responsible for outing a CIA agent, or illegally torturing prisoners, etc.) who will say "why the fuss - we're talking about terrorists, after all."

Except we're not. As this Washington Post article (and this) make clear, even actually being declared innocent by US intelligence wasn't sufficient to earn Murat Kurnaz his release from imprisonment, where he was kept for four years for no cause whatsoever. It took a personal plea from German Chancellor Angela Merkel to achieve that.

Meanwhile, who knows what indignities Kurnaz suffered. I'm sure any videotapes have been destroyed.