By a relatively slight margin, the U.S. Congress has rejected an amendment by Democratic Rep. Maurice Hinchey to declassify files on Argentina's 1976-1983 military dictatorship.
The refusal to declassify the files is likely to stymie efforts to determine the fate of hundreds of babies stolen or "disappeared" during those years. Many of those babies were born in clandestine torture centers, while others were adopted, or given away for adoption, by the same members of the military or police personnel responsible for their parents' disappearance.
It is not altogether clear whose interests the refusal is intended to protect. One can hardly imagine that national security, or the work of U.S. spies fighting al-Qaida as suggested by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican, would be put in jeopardy by not keeping these files secret.