Obama's Justice Department backs Bush secrecy on renditions suit

[babsbunny]

http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Obamas_Justice_Department_backs_Bush_state_0209.html

Stephen C. Webster
Published: Monday February 9, 2009




Update (at bottom): ACLU 'shocked and deeply disappointed'

An attorney for President Obama's Department of Justice has told the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that it supports the Bush administration's controversial state secrets defense in a lawsuit over the prior president's "extraordinary rendition" program.

"The case involves five men who claim to have been victims of extraordinary rendition -- including current Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed, another plaintiff in jail in Egypt, one in jail in Morocco, and two now free," reports ABC News. "They sued a San Jose Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen Dataplan, accusing the flight-planning company of aiding the CIA in flying them to other countries and secret CIA camps where they were tortured."

[MasonJar]

1. Now there is change we can believe in! Obama's feet will have to be

put to the fire or he will fail all of us, that is, We, the People. Obama is not going to go after Bushista unless we demand it.

[liberalsince1968]

2. I am in shock over this. This is such a fundamental issue - and Obama failed.

[Hellataz]

3. I'll reserve judgment

we're all so quick to jump on the negative, only for Obama to go out later and explain things in a way that makes it more palatable for us. With Obama's main focus on the stimulus Bill, I could easily chalk this up to Obama delegating this issue only to later come back and revise the justice departments solutions. We also aren't prevy to all the information he is, so I maintain that he be given the benefit of the doubt.