Supreme Court Declines "State Secrets" Case

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear a case in which five men were suing a CIA contractor for its role in kidnapping them abroad and taking them to secret interrogation locations in other countries.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday to let stand a federal appeals court ruling that the president has the power to scuttle the men's lawsuit because state secrets, such as how CIA operatives interrogate terror suspects, could be revealed if the case went to trial.

The men claimed they were kidnapped off the streets in their countries, and taken to secret locations where they were harshly interrogated and subjected to torture techniques, according to the LA Times. The program has been referred to as "extraordinary rendition."

According to Wired, "The rendition program at issue, the appeals court said, called for apprehending foreign nationals suspected of terrorism and secretly transferring them to foreign countries 'to employ interrogation methods that would otherwise have been prohibited under federal or international law.'"

The target of the case was Boeing subsidiary and CIA contractor Jeppesen DataPlan Inc. of San Jose.

The case was dismissed by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in September, by a 6 to 5 vote to "to uphold the president's power to shield wartime actions from judicial scrutiny."  This was the last chance for the plaintiffs, some of whom spent years in detention.  All of the plaintiffs were eventually released without charges.

♦ Photo by flickr/The National Guard