Bush Wins One

[Dr. Shane]

Supreme Court terminates lawsuit against CIA

Quote:

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court today terminated a lawsuit from a man who claims he was abducted and tortured by the CIA, effectively endorsing Bush administration arguments that state secrets would be revealed if the case were allowed to proceed.

Khaled el-Masri, 44, alleged that he was kidnapped by CIA agents in Europe and held in an Afghan prison for four months in a case of mistaken identity.

The administration has not publicly acknowledged that el-Masri was detained, and lower courts dismissed his suit after the administration asserted that state secrets would be revealed if the lawsuit were not blocked. The justices rejected his appeal without comment.

The case had been seen as a test of the administration's legal strategy to stop it and several other national security lawsuits by invoking the doctrine of state secrets. Another lawsuit over the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, also dismissed on state secrets grounds, still is pending before the justices.

A coalition of groups favoring greater openness in government says the Bush administration has used the state secrets privilege much more often than its predecessors.

At the height of Cold War tensions between the United States and the former Soviet Union, U.S. presidents used the state secrets privilege six times from 1953 to 1976, according to OpenTheGovernment.org. Since 2001, it has been used 39 times, enabling the government to unilaterally withhold documents from the court system, the group said.

Of course we are not in a cold war, we are in a very hot one and our enemy is not as easily as identified as it was during the Cold War. But why mention that?

[Bravus]

Yay, Bush got away with torturing a man then using the courts to cover it up! Woohoo!

[olger]

Which direction is "left" in the southern hemisphere...?

:)

[Bravus]

I was phrasing it sarcastically, but where's the factual flaw in what I said? the court didn't say he wasn't tortured, they said 'telling you if he was is a threat to national security'. I'm not sure that the spectacle of Christians rejoicing when their government gets away with torture is one that's even really comprehensible to me, left, right, up or down.

[Dr. Shane]

I understand the system is not perfect. The courts are to stand between the government and the individual and protect the individual from an oppressive government. The courts have slapped the Bush Administration's hands on a number of occasions - thus showing they are doing their duty. I have gotten stuck in the court system before and am very sympathetic to those with similar experiences. In this story the individual was only locked up for four months and the courts sided with the Administration. So I am willing to chalk one up for the Bush Administration.

[Woody]

Which direction is "left" in the southern hemisphere...?

Hi Olger my friend. How are you doing? The answer to your question is that it depends upon which way you are facing.