Rendition case in S.F. to test Obama policies - San Francisco Chronicle

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

After Panetta's evasisve dance on "rendition" vs "extraordinary rendition" it should be interesting to see how this turns out.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/02/09/MN3M15OU2E.DTL

The public is likely to get its first close look at the Obama administration's policies on torture, secrecy and prisoners' rights in a San Francisco courtroom today, when federal judges press a government lawyer for a position on the practice known as extraordinary rendition.

Five men - one now imprisoned in Egypt, one in Morocco, one at Guantanamo Bay and two who have been released without charges - are asking the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate a lawsuit that accuses a San Jose flight-planning company of helping the CIA transport them to overseas dungeons for interrogation and torture.

The suit against Jeppesen Dataplan, a Boeing Co. subsidiary, has never gone to trial. The Bush administration intervened and persuaded U.S. District Judge James Ware to dismiss the case in February 2008 on the grounds that allowing it to proceed could expose state secrets and harm national security.

Obama's course unclear

But those arguments were made when George W. Bush was president. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the plaintiffs suing Jeppesen, is looking for President Obama to reverse course.

"The administration should unequivocally reject the Bush administration's abuse of the state secrets privilege and permit this case to go forward," said ACLU attorney Ben Wizner. "Victims of extraordinary rendition deserve their day in court."