9th Circuit Court of Appeals throws Out Torture Victim's Case

[mmonk]

on the basis of the State Secrets privilege and "national security".

Five foreign men who say they were kidnapped and tortured by the CIA cannot sue the Boeing Co. subsidiary that helped spirit them away for interrogations because of the risk of secret intelligence matters being exposed at trial, a sharply divided federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.

The decision in the closely watched case was a significant victory for the Obama administration because it recognized a president's power to protect wartime actions from judicial scrutiny by invoking the state secrets doctrine.

The civil rights lawyer who represented the alleged victims of the Bush administration's "extraordinary rendition" program said the ruling, if allowed to stand, means the United States has "closed its courtroom doors to torture victims."

The majority in the 6-5 ruling of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals "reluctantly" concluded that national security interests in the case were paramount to "even the most compelling necessity" to protect fundamental principles of liberty and justice.



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http://mobile.latimes.com/wap/news/text.jsp?sid=294&nid=21214417&cid=16677&scid=1854&ith=2&title=Top+Stories





The lawsuit was brought by Binyam Mohamed, the one who's torture included genital mutilation by razor blades.

It's official. The presidency has surpassed the power King George had when we rebelled against England. We live under an executive branch dictatorship because the executive branch can cite national security using the state secrets privilege and break our laws.

[krispos42]

1. K&R

[mmonk]

2. Sad there is such little interest in the usurpation of our constitution

and the rule of law these days. I guess not many care about our founding concepts.

[flyarm]

3. This just makes me sick to my stomach! And who will fight for our constitutional rights when they

are all abolished? Under state secrets?????????

I feel so violated to have any constitutional rights destroyed!

and it is being done by BOTH Parties!

USA..I hardly know ye..

Democratic party..where are you?? What do you really stand for???????

[ceile]

4. K&R

[Ezlivin]

5. Read: Secrets trump liberty

It's as if the State has realized that by simply categorizing something as secret they can get away with anything.

And as long as we don't have any citizen representatives on the court bench these pernicious rulings will continue.

[mmonk]

6. Yes, unfortunately.

Pretty sad. No indication of a working checks and balances system anymore.

[gratuitous]

7. Note to the nitwits on the bench

We don't have any national security if we don't have liberty or justice. We are more vulnerable to attack than ever when we trim the Constitution to fit some specious claim of "national security," and our country deserves to be tossed onto the ash heap of history as another failed police state. The past is full of examples that the fall of the United States will not be pretty, and many of the people in power today will be treated the worst.

Enjoy your exalted position, boys.