President Obama’s Defense Department will have to release the photos and video of Osama bin Laden’s death if a court rules in favor of Judicial Watch, a conservative non-profit group promoting government transparency. The group told a federal judge yesterday the Department of Defense (DOD) “cannot legally justify” withholding the images from the American people.
“President Obama is asking the court to allow his administration to withhold documents simply because their disclosure may cause controversy,” said Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton in a statement. “President Obama’s political calculations are no substitute for the rule of law. The Obama administration has no legal right to withhold this material from the American people, especially now that he is using this military victory in his presidential campaign.”
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Judicial Watch requested, under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), all images of bin Laden taken during the military action that ended in the terrorist leader’s death, and filed a lawsuit in May when the FOIA was rejected. Fitton said that Obama’s decision to withhold the images “appease[s] our enemies by undermining out nation’s core government accountability law,” and he added that Obama seems to be “playing shell games” with the photos and video of the dead bin Laden.
The organization acknowledged told Judge James Boasberg, of the United States District Court for Washington D.C., that it “solely seeks those records that have not been properly classified as well as those records for which no military or intelligence secrets would be revealed.”
“The killing of Osama bin Laden is a tremendous historic event,” Fitton said. “The law simply doesn’t allow President Obama to but the bin Laden photos and video down the memory hole.”
You can read the Judicial Watch memorandum, asking for summary judgement in favor of releasing the bin Laden photos and video, below.
