federal judge in New York ruled that the Bush administration 's refusal to disclose the photographs was unlawful , and in 2008 a federal appeals court unanimously affirmed that decision . The Bush administration continued to suppress the photos , and now President Obama has vowed to do the same . The photos are a critical part of the historical record . The government has acknowledged that they depict prisoner abuse at locations other than Abu Ghraib , and it 's clear that the photos would provide irrefutable evidence that abuse was widespread and systemic . The photos would also shed light on the connection between the abuse and the decisions of high-level Bush administration officials . As the district court recognized , the photos are `` the best evidence of what happened . '' In explaining his change of heart , President Obama said that the release of the photos `` would not add any additional benefit '' to the ongoing public debate about the abuse of prisoners . But the ongoing public debate is rife with false claims , and the photos would expose the truth . The Bush administration told the public that abuse was aberrational and
Editor 's note : Jameel Jaffer and Amrit Singh are attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union and co-authors of `` Administration of Torture : A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond '' . Jaffer is counsel to the plaintiffs in ACLU v. Department of Defense , a lawsuit that has forced the release of more than 100,000 pages of government documents concerning the abuse of prisoners . Singh is lead counsel in the suit seeking disclosure of photographs of U.S. personnel abusing prisoners at overseas locations . Jameel Jaffer says the courts have ruled that refusal to disclose the abuse photos was unlawful . -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Last week President Obama announced that he would suppress prisoner abuse photographs that he earlier said he would release . Given the president 's stated commitment to government transparency , this reversal was both surprising and profoundly disappointing . The ACLU has sought release of these photos for almost six years . In October 2003 , we filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act for records -- including photographs -- relating to the abuse of prisoners in U.S. detention facilities overseas . In 2005 , a