Court bars release of detainee abuse pics

WASHINGTON, Calif., Nov. 30 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court Monday threw out a lower-court ruling that would have forced the release of photos of alleged detainee abuse by the U.S. military.

A federal appeals court in New York had ordered the Pentagon in 2008 to release the scores of photos of alleged prisoner abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The American Civil Liberties Union had filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to acquire the photos, and won its case at trial and in the appeals court.

But Congress enacted a law allowing the secretary of defense to exempt the photos from FOIA. The Obama administration, after first saying it supported making the photos public, later said it feared releasing the pictures might endanger U.S. troops overseas.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates cited the new FOIA exemption earlier in November, and the U.S. Supreme Court Monday, as expected, ordered the case sent back down to the New York appeals court for a new verdict in light of the new law and Gates' action.

"We continue to believe that the photos should be released, and we intend to press that case in the lower court," ACLU Legal Director Steven Shapiro said in a statement. "No democracy has ever been made stronger by suppressing evidence of its own misconduct."

Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project, said, "We continue to believe that the Defense Department's suppression of these photos is both unlawful and unwise, and that there is a strong public interest in the photos' release."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who earlier sat on the federal appeals court in New York but did not participate in the case, did not vote on the case at the Supreme Court level, but gave no explanation.