'Torture memos' embolden Dems

[BlueJessamine]

'Torture memos' embolden Dems

by J.Gerstein @ Politico

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0409/21386.html

President Barack Obama’s decision to release the so-called “torture memos” has emboldened civil-liberties activists and top Democrats in Congress to step up their demands for ever broader disclosure of the most closely held secrets of the Bush anti-terror fight.

Liberal groups are seizing on the graphic memos, saying Obama has set a powerful precedent for the release of other anti-terror tactics, including warrantless wiretapping. In Congress, the memos have intensified calls for a “truth commission” to conduct a broad investigation into alleged excesses by the Bush administration.

The response is exactly what some in the administration privately feared when Obama decided to reveal the legal memos detailing aggressive CIA interrogation techniques. They worry the burden will shift to Obama to release other documents - or be forced to explain why the torture memos could be released but others ones cannot.

One lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, Jameel Jaffer, said he hopes that the administration’s action signals a willingness to turn over other records the group is demanding about alleged interrogation abuses, warrantless wiretapping, and other practices.

“We’re hoping, in some of these cases, we won’t have to go back to the court, that the administration has made a decision that certain information about the CIA program can be released,” Jaffer said. “We have the option of going back to the judges and asking them to review the memos, but the fact that all of this information is in the public domain is going to make it much more difficult to withhold these other documents.”