We filed this Freedom of Information Act case in June 2011, seeking the official release of 24 U.S. embassy cables relating to the U.S. diplomatic response to foreign investigations of U.S. abduction, detention, interrogation and rendition practices, the U.S. government’s efforts regarding prosecution or release of Guantanamo detainees, the U.S. government’s use of drones, and the U.S. diplomatic response to President Obama’s decision not to release photographs showing U.S. interrogations of suspected terrorists. These cables relate to issues of ACLU concern, and they had already been posted on the WikiLeaks website. In other words, the FOIA request sought documents the ACLU already had, but unofficially. It’s important to get official (i.e., declassified) copies of these cables because courts won’t recognize the validity of leaked documents.
In July 2012, the court granted the State Department’s motion for summary judgment, ruling that the cables published by WikiLeaks remained properly classified even though they were on the Internet. We did not appeal.
