New York-based U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein said he told government lawyers last month that he viewed a certification then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta signed in 2012 as not legally adequate to withhold the photos. The judge called the finding "deficient because it was not sufficiently individualized and it did not establish the Secretary's own basis for concluding that disclosure would endanger Americans."

The judge offered the Obama administration an opportunity to provide a more detailed certification by this week, but officials declined to meet that deadline, while insisting that a re-certification is underway on a somewhat longer timeline.

In an order released Friday (and posted here), Hellerstein suggested the administration was stalling in the lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups seeking to expose more information about abusive treatement of prisoners in the custody of the U.S. military in places like Afghanistan and Iraq.