Missing, Presumed Destroyed

This ain’t such old news, in fact, we don’t know yet the extent of this news. But we know where it starts: the federal government is destroying valuable evidence of the war on terror, and of our government’s own heinous acts.

Here’s where it start, but I’m not sure where it ends: the CIA recently admitted that it destroyed a video recording of an interrogation it conducted of a suspected terrorist. I say that’s where the story starts, and let me say we don’t know where the story ends.

We don’t know where it ends, because with all stories like this in the war on terror, we really don’t know the extent of the federal government’s destruction of valuable evidence. We may learn in the days that come that the extent of evidence destruction is greater than what has already been revealed. Precedent for this story expansion abounds in the news for the last few years. Remember the phone tap fiasco that at first was described as eavesdropping on foreign incoming suspected terrorist calls, and later was revealed to include most phone calls, done in cooperation with many of the leading telephone calls?

But that’s only one small aspect of the story. The most troubling part of this story is the actual destruction itself. The CIA justifies it for a number of reasons, all ridiculous: the identity of the CIA interrogators would be revealed, our interrogation methods would be revealed, and the tapes would be used as terrorist propaganda. Here’s why these reasons just don’t make sense.

First, if Jerry Springer and MTV can obscure peoples faces, logos, seemingly offending stuff, and bleep out cuss words, then I would assume our own government could use the same technology to conceal the identity of CIA interrogators.

Second, everyone apparently knows that the tape contains an interrogation done while ‘waterboarding’. Waterboarding is a torture technique whereby a person is made to gag while drowning is simulated. Everyone knows it, so why do we need to hide what is on the tape. Maybe the tape contains other torture techniques our government doesn’t want anyone to know about. Hmmm, follow where this story leads….

Third, the only propaganda value is if the video shows some form of torture, which our government denies. Does it in fact show torture?

The last I point I want to make of this tape is that it’s destruction, in my opinion, actually damages our war on terror. I’m an attorney. If I walked into a courtroom and found out evidence regarding my client had been destroyed by the prosecution, I’d have a field day. Imagine standing in front of a jury to say if the government destroyed this key piece of evidence, what else was destroyed? Plus, for the prosecution side, wouldn’t you want the tape intact? Sure, a transcript is nice, but the tape can show nuances you wouldn’t find in a tape alone. Hand gestures, changes in demeanor, and eye contact/non-contact are all things that can be caught o video that will be missing in a transcript.

So, what's the real story? Stay tuned!