NY judge declines to find CIA in contempt over destruction of detainee interrogation tapes

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said in a written ruling that the CIA has since remedied its failure to produce videotapes in response to requests by the American Civil Liberties Union. He wrote that the people processing the ACLU’s Freedom of Information Act request may not have been aware of the videotapes’ existence before they were destroyed.

The government has acknowledged destroying 92 videotapes, including those containing interrogations of a high-level al-Qaida lieutenant who claimed he suffered physical and mental torture at the hands of the CIA. The tapes were destroyed in 2005.

In January, the judge said a contempt finding would be impractical and told the CIA to investigate itself and report how it will prevent employees from destroying information in the future. On Wednesday, he noted that the CIA adopted two new policies in August regarding document preservation to ensure that destruction of any documents outside of routine management of CIA materials will not occur without a review by lawyers to ensure they are preserved for legal proceedings or congressional oversight activity.

The judge said the CIA’s new protocols would have “a remedial and deterrent effect should a CIA official think to destroy documents.”

“The protocols should lead to better communication and more complete written records within the agency and across the government when an issue of document destruction or retention arises within the agency,” he said. “The CIA’s new protocols should lead to greater accountability within the agency and prevent another episode like the videotapes’ destruction.”