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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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June 13th,
2009 - U.S. Urges New Look at State-Secrets Case |
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U.S. Urges New Look at
State-Secrets Case Administration Asks Court to Reconsider Its Decision Allowing
Rendition Lawsuit By Carrie Johnson Washington Post June 13, 2009 The Obama administration
yesterday petitioned a full federal appeals court to hear its argument that
it should not have to reveal details of the CIA's "black site"
prison program, adopting an expansive position that activists say would
prevent victims of rendition in the Bush years from having their day in
court. The Justice Department urged
the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit to reconsider a case of
"exceptional importance" and to overturn an April ruling that
sharply limited the executive branch's authority. That ruling by a
three-judge panel cleared the way for a lawsuit filed by five foreign-born
men who say they were kidnapped, flown to other countries and questioned
using practices they liken to torture. Civil liberties groups and
Democrats on Capitol Hill have been closely watching how often the Obama
administration has argued, as the Bush administration did, that some lawsuits
should be thrown out to prevent revealing state secrets. Lawmakers are
pushing measures in both houses of Congress to ensure that, when a
state-secrets claim is made, judges review sensitive evidence piece by piece
rather than throwing out an entire case. During the presidential
campaign, Barack Obama criticized the Bush administration for using
state-secrets arguments dozens of times to stop lawsuits over warrantless
surveillance, alleged abuse of terrorism suspects and other controversial
subjects. One day after the judges
issued a sharply worded ruling in the rendition case, known as Mohamed et al
v. Jeppesen Dataplan after the Boeing subsidiary that provided support for
the overseas rendition flights, the president said he would direct his
lawyers to develop a more "surgical" policy on state secrets. That
effort continues, according to the White House and the Justice Department. But yesterday's court filing
frustrated civil libertarians who said their hopes for a significant break
from the Bush era on state-secrets policy had been all but dashed. "This is a watershed
moment," said Ben Wizner, a staff lawyer at the American Civil Liberties
Union's National Security Project. "There's no mistake any longer ...
the Obama administration has now fully embraced the Bush administration's
shameful effort to immunize torturers and their enablers from any legal
consequences for their actions." Tracy Schmaler, a
spokeswoman for the Justice Department, declined to comment. In the government court
filing yesterday, lawyers reported that the "highest levels of the
Department of Justice" had reviewed the case and had sided with former
CIA director Michael V. Hayden. He had twice submitted sworn statements
warning that any release of information would cause "grave harm" to
the agency's intelligence-gathering efforts and its relationships with
foreign leaders. "It is the government's
position that allowing this suit to proceed would pose an unacceptable risk
to national security and that the reasoning employed by the panel would
dramatically restructure government operations by permitting any district
judge to override the executive branch's judgments in this highly sensitive
realm," the Justice Department filing said. Wizner and other advocates
for greater disclosure called the argument puzzling, because details about
the rendition program have already emerged. European researchers have
compiled documents tying Jeppesen to the CIA-commissioned flights, and one of
the five men suing in U.S. court has recovered $450,000 from the Swedish
government for its alleged role in his capture. Developments in the
rendition lawsuit are the latest tensions to surface for new government
leaders over how much information to release about Bush initiatives in the
campaign against terrorism. The Justice Department is also using the
state-secrets argument in a lawsuit filed by an Oregon charity whose lawyers
say they were unlawfully wiretapped, as well as in numerous ACLU Freedom of
Information Act cases focused on detainee treatment and the development of
interrogation policy. External link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/12/AR2009061203858.html |