APPG News

David Davis MP asks a parliamentary question about whether any detainees are held on British Indian Ocean Territory Diego Garcia.  It can be read here.

Following several years of ongoing litigation over Freedom of Information requests made by the APPG on Extraordinary Rendition, the State Department has cleared for release a number of documents relating to its extraordinary rendition programme and consequences.  The documents are now available on the APPG's website here.

Officials failed to record arguments in a terrorist case heard in a US federal court last week.  The arguments concerned whether attorneys representing the terrorism suspect should be allowed to view confidential surveillance documents.  The clerk of the federal appeals court admitted that his office 'screwed up' in not turning on the recording equipment as it was supposed to.  More can be read here.

Two unnamed individuals who face allegations of terrorist acts will be tried in secret for the first time in modern history, in a departure from the principles of open justice and transparency.  Their identity and alleged crimes have not been disclosed for national security reasons.  More can be read here and here.  Neither Just Nor Secure, authored by Anthony Peto QC and Andrew Tyrie MP and published by the Centre for Policy Studies in January 2013, discusses the dangers of secret courts and the proposals put in place by the Justice and Security Act.  It can be read here.

In response to the ACLU's Freedom of Information lawsuit, the CIA must provide an update by 20 June 2014 of its declassification review of the Senate report on torture.  More can be read here.  The ACLU's filings can be found here.

Sir David Omand, former head of GCHQ, says that the ISC may need to be reformed if its new powers under the Justice and Security Act are not sufficient to enable it to do its job.  More can be read here.