Obama admin. invokes Bush's 'state-secret' defense to silence detainee's rendition testimony

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"State Secrets" Privilege Not Gone with Bush

NEW YORK, Feb 9 (IPS) - President Barack Obama has cast doubt on his promise to put an end to secret government by allowing his Justice Department to follow a path frequently taken by his predecessor.

Before a federal appeals court in San Francisco Monday, lawyers from the Obama Department of Justice invoked the same "state secrets privilege" used by the administration of President George W. Bush to argue that a lawsuit brought on behalf of Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyan Mohamed and four other alleged victims of the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" programme should not go forward because revealing the evidence would harm national security

If the appeals court agrees, it will mean that the alleged victims will not have their day in court. The court has not yet ruled on the case.

The defendant in the civil lawsuit is known as Jeppesen Dataplan, a subsidiary of aerospace giant Boeing, which is alleged to have knowingly provided the CIA with the chartered aircraft used to "render" terror suspects to countries where they were tortured.

ACLU attorney Ben Wizner, who argued Monday on behalf of Mohamed and the other appellants, told IPS, "To date, not a single alleged torture victim has had his day in court. In this case, most of the evidence is already public. There are no 'state secrets' here."

"And if there were, our federal courts are well prepared to handle this issue," he added. "This is a betrayal of the rule of law. It is not the standard we expected from the Obama administration."


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