UK Foreign Office Reverses Course On CIA Rendition Files 'Lost' To Water Damage: Papers Have Now 'Dried Out'

from the it's-a-miracle! dept

No one's immune from careless document handling, not when a government's in charge! The ongoing war of words over the Internal Revenue Service's lackluster data retention continues, with the agency claiming emails relevant to a House investigation all simply vanished during a series of coincidental computer crashes. That these should have been backed up to hard copy (as IRS policy dictates) and backed up further by servers elsewhere has been the topic of conversation for a few weeks now, but all the posturing in the world isn't going to bring these emails back.

The UK has its own problems with keeping relevant records intact and accessible. A little over a week ago, the UK Foreign Office was asked to produce documents detailing the use of its Diego Garcia base for CIA extraordinary rendition flights. In a variation of the "computer ate my homework," the Foreign Office offered up this explanation for its failure to produce the requested records.

''Daily occurrence logs, which record the flights landing and taking off, cover the period since 2003. Though there are some limited records from 2002, I understand they are incomplete due to water damage.''
Oh, well. It's only stuff from 2002 that's somehow too wet to recover. Out of a decade's worth of records, that's not too bad. Except that records from 2002 are exactly the records pertinent to the discussion, as indirectly acknowledged by a Foreign Office spokeswoman:
''With or without flight records we have firm assurances from the US government, as recently as December 2013, that apart from two instances of rendition through Diego Garcia in 2002 there have been no other instances in which US intelligence flights landed in the UK, our overseas territories or crown dependencies with a detainee on board since September 11, 2001.''
So, if we choose to believe the "firm assurances" of the US government, 2002 would be the only year with acknowledged rendition flights, making the rest of the non-wet documents largely extraneous. Cue disbelief from pretty much everyone but the Foreign Office. First, the CIA's "torture tapes" vanish and now records on its rendition flights somehow managed to sustain very specific damage.

Maybe it's true. Maybe only the records actively being sought happened to be stored in harm's way. Either way, the cries of "cover up" forced the Foreign Office to take a closer look at the requested files, quite possibly for the first time.
Foreign Office minister Mark Simmonds said a ''fuller inspection'' from BIOT immigration officials has revealed ''previously wet paper records have been dried out''.
This variation of "Oh, you mean these records?" has prompted further disbelief and, presumably, an above-average amount of cynicism. The Foreign Office has also declared that it will (rather belatedly) remove these files from beneath the "leaking roof" and digitize them into compliance with Two-Thousand-Freaking-Fourteen.

Unlike the thoroughly destroyed tapes, wet things will dry out, provided someone makes an actual attempt to recover the files and assess the damage. The Foreign Office appears to have done none of that when first asked to turn them over. Instead, it took the word "wet" to mean "irrecoverable" until the building outrage forced it to actually send someone to take a look at the files it declared lost.

Odd how that works. Wet things becoming dry. Destroyed records suddenly becoming recoverable. The Foreign Office loses either way. There have been too many previous attempts by the UK government to cover up its involvement in some of the US's more questionable activities. This sudden about-face on missing documents only confirms that default mode is still secrecy.

Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: cia, diego garcia, foreign office, records, rendition, uk, water damage


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • icon
    Ninja (profile), 18 Jul 2014 @ 3:47am

    The Foreign Office has also declared that it will (rather belatedly) remove these files from beneath the "leaking roof" and digitize them into compliance with Two-Thousand-Freaking-Fourteen.

    Now imagine if it was metadata. They'd be building a millions worth datacenter with no leakage whatsoever. Preferably in a very dry place. Wait a second...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Jul 2014 @ 4:00am

    How to increase the publics trust in Governments statements, see if you can tell better stories that a two year old denying responsibility.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    That One Guy (profile), 18 Jul 2014 @ 4:03am

    The dog ate it

    The part that really boggles the mind is that they thought anyone would believe it when they tried the 'water damage' excuse. Most of the records are fine, but it just so happens that the ones requested are 'damaged'? Yeah, I'm sure.

    At best you'd be looking at gross negligence, for leaving important records in a situation where there's a possibility for them to be damaged like that, and that's assuming they're actually telling the truth this time around, something I rather doubt.

    Still, maybe they were taking lessons from the IRS in the US. The IRS 'lost' important records, and so far all of nothing has been done in response, perhaps they were just hoping that they'd be able to get by with a similar absence of scrutiny/repercussions.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      MadAsASnake (profile), 18 Jul 2014 @ 5:11am

      Re: The dog ate it

      The implication here is that they left knowingly them under that leaking roof until someone made a big enough fuss.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • icon
        scotts13 (profile), 18 Jul 2014 @ 5:47am

        Re: Re: The dog ate it

        ...and pooped it out again.

        This reminds me of some of the legal theories I've heard in court. The one making the statement doesn't believe it, the judge doesn't believe it, the prosecutor doesn't believe it - but they all pretend to as a professional courtesy. In this case, they're almost daring someone to prove they're lying - and how is the public going to do THAT?

        link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    orbitalinsertion (profile), 18 Jul 2014 @ 5:08am

    It would all be recoverable

    If they were paper or magnetic or optical records they wanted to use in even a frivolous surveillance or prosecution effort against you.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Jon Jones (profile), 18 Jul 2014 @ 6:11am

    ''previously wet paper records have been dried out''.. Slightly off topic but it reminds me of a time my 5 year old niece became fascinated by the barbecue one Sunday afternoon. I told her not to touch because it's very hot and it will burn you. Later that evening she appears with hands filthy from charcoal dust. Angrily I said "I thought I told you not to touch it" and she replied "but you only said that because it was hot, it's not hot any more" Very hard to argue with that kind of logic. Owned by a 5 year old.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    RonKaminsky (profile), 18 Jul 2014 @ 6:31am

    Sufficient time for review and coverup?

    One wonders if this "wet/dry" was planned from the start, and only necessary because the authorities needed time to review the requested documents and make sure the really damning ones could be falsified.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      David, 18 Jul 2014 @ 6:56am

      Re: Sufficient time for review and coverup?

      and make sure the really damning ones could be falsified

      You mean "fungified".

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Jul 2014 @ 7:27am

    You'd think UK government departments would have better excuses:

    Jim: [reading] This file contains the complete set of papers, except for a number of secret documents, a few others which are part of still active files, a few others lost in the flood of 1967. [to Humphrey] Was 1967 a particularly bad winter?
    Sir Humphrey: No a marvellous winter, we lost no end of embarrassing files.
    - The Skeleton in the Cupboard, Yes Minister

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Jul 2014 @ 7:50am

    Next Up

    "All records are properly archived and are intact. Unfortunately, the act of retrieval renders them inaccessible."

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      DogBreath, 18 Jul 2014 @ 11:21am

      Re: Next Up

      I was thinking something more like: "Water, you have failed me for the last time. Fire, you are now in charge. Do not fail me."

      All with the appropriate costume and voice, of course.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Jul 2014 @ 9:16am

    I'm glad wet records from 2002 finally had enough time to dry out after 12 years. Those must have been some REALLY wet records.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • identicon
      Anonymous Coward, 18 Jul 2014 @ 10:14am

      Re:

      They were still wet from the "light" interrogation they were undergoing to ensure they would only tell the approved version of events.

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Jul 2014 @ 10:09am

    Assume the worst

    If records that legally need to be kept are not found, then the worst must be assumed and the prosecution should win hands down. Unless they can prove that the charges are wrong, they are guilty of not only the initial charges, but conspiracy to cover up after the fact.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 18 Jul 2014 @ 4:24pm

    I wonder who's going to end up with our data after the tornado's hit the UTAH Data Center

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Coyne Tibbets (profile), 19 Jul 2014 @ 11:27am

    Standard procedure

    Okay, so back on July 10 it was lost, too damaged to use. Now suddenly it's available again?!

    After thinking about this for a while, I conclude you can read their responses as follows:

    On July 10, "You can't have the records because those contain evidence of wrongdoing."

    On July 18, "You can have the records now, because we've scrubbed out all the evidence of wrongdoing."

    So good luck finding anything useful in there.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      That One Guy (profile), 19 Jul 2014 @ 4:45pm

      Re: Standard procedure

      It's amazing how selective 'water damage' can be when it comes to potentially embarrassing documents...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

      • identicon
        Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2014 @ 11:21pm

        Re: Re: Standard procedure

        Gives a whole new meaning to the term "Cleaning Up Their Act".

        link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.