"Absent an unexpected groundswell of opposition, Congress this week will pass legislation that gives the Defense Department the authority to suppress evidence of its own misconduct.


The amendment is directed at a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union to enforce a Freedom of Information Act request submitted in 2003. After a court ordered the Bush administration to respond to the request, the Defense Department acknowledged the existence of the prisoner-abuse photos but sought to withhold them from the public on the grounds that their disclosure could provoke violence against U.S. troops and others in Afghanistan and Iraq.


The legislation would suppress many more photos in government custody than the ones at issue in the ACLU case. It covers images taken between Sept. 11, 2001, and Jan. 22, 2009, that relate to the treatment of individuals "engaged, captured or detained" by the armed forces. It would cover photos depicting the abuse of prisoners, but it could also cover, for example, video footage of aerial attacks that resulted in civilian casualties or photos showing the conditions of confinement at the Bagram detention center in Afghanistan. The legislation establishes a regime of censorship that would extend to many images of the military's activities abroad.


Supporters of the legislation have said that the bill is motivated by concerns about security, but no democracy has ever been made stronger by concealing evidence of its wrongdoing. The last administration's decision to endorse torture undermined the United States' moral authority and compromised its security. The failure of the country's current leadership to fully confront the abuses of the last administration -- a failure embodied by the legislation that Congress is preparing to enact -- will only compound these harms."