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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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April 22nd,
2009 - Lawyer Tells Court CIA Memos Undermine Case |
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Lawyer Tells Court
CIA Memos Undermine Case By Bob Egelko San Francisco Chronicle April 22, 2009 Foreign prisoners who
accused a Bay Area company of arranging torture flights for the CIA told a
federal appeals court Tuesday that the Obama administration's disclosure of
memos on brutal CIA interrogations undermined its claim that their lawsuit
would endanger national secrets. The administration's chief
rationale for dismissing the suit "no longer exists, because the
(interrogation) methods are now public, and because they have been
prohibited," Ben Wizner, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer
representing five current and former U.S. prisoners, said in a filing with
the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The five men accuse Jeppesen
Dataplan, a San Jose subsidiary of the Boeing Co., of colluding with the CIA
in their kidnapping and torture in a practice known as extraordinary
rendition. The Bush administration
acknowledged the rendition program, in which suspected criminals and
terrorists were taken to foreign countries or CIA prisons for interrogation.
The administration said, however, that the foreign governments guaranteed no
one would be tortured. A former Jeppesen employee,
in a court declaration, quoted a company director as telling staffers in 2006
that Jeppesen handled torture flights. A federal judge dismissed
the suit last year, agreeing with the Bush administration's argument that it
could damage national security. President Obama renounced torture and ordered
secret CIA prisons closed after taking office, but his administration has
adopted its predecessor's position in the Jeppesen case. "Judges shouldn't play
with fire," Justice Department attorney Douglas Letter told the appeals
court in February. He argued that none of the critical issues in the suit -
the CIA's alleged seizure and detention of the men, their treatment and the
agency's relationship with a private company - could be aired safely in
court. Last week, Obama
declassified four Bush administration Justice Department memos authorizing
the CIA to keep al Qaeda suspects awake for as long as 11 days and use a
variety of other techniques during interrogations, including head slaps,
stress positions, slamming into walls and the simulated-drowning procedure
called waterboarding. Department lawyers said none of the procedures would
constitute torture. None of the documents
involved the plaintiffs in the Jeppesen case. But Wizner said former CIA
Director Michael Hayden, who criticized the release of the memos, also
provided a declaration that is central in the argument over the prisoners'
lawsuit. Hayden has said Obama's
disclosure of the memos would aid the nation's enemies by displaying the
outer limits of the CIA's methods. "The CIA has managed to
avoid liability for torture by promoting the fiction that its torture and
rendition programs were secret," Wizner said in an interview. "By declassifying and
officially confirming some of the worst details of the Bush torture regime,
President Obama has removed any basis for denying victims their day in
court," Wizner said. The Justice Department did
not respond to a request for comment. External link: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/04/21/MN74176I3J.DTL&type=politics |