The ACLU and the Center for Consitutional Right, along with medical and veterans' groups have filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit charging that the Department of Defense and other government agencies illegally withheld records concerning the abuse of detainees in American military custody. Details and background are here.

An ACLU feature on the FOIA request, including a timeline that describes events that occurred during the time covered by its request is available here. You can read the complaint here (pdf).

"The government's ongoing refusal to release these records is absolutely unacceptable, particularly in light of the severity of the abuses we know to have occurred," said Jameel Jaffer, an ACLU staff attorney. "The public has a right to know what the government's policies were, why these abuses were allowed to take place, and who was ultimately responsible."

The withholding of documents, the lawsuit says, violates the government's obligation to comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the ACLU, CCR, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. Filed more than six months ago, the FOIA request was directed to the Departments of Defense, State, Homeland Security, and Justice, as well as the CIA. The request expressed concern - now validated by the Abu Ghraib photographs - that detainees in U.S. custody were being subjected to abuse and even torture. The FOIA request also cited reports that detainees were being turned over or "rendered" to foreign countries with poor human rights records, as a way to sidestep domestic and international laws prohibiting torture.