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Obama's Justice Department backs Bush secrecy on renditions suit
ACLU 'shocked and deeply disappointed'
An attorney for President Obama's Department of Justice has told the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that it supports the Bush administration's controversial state secrets defense in a lawsuit over the prior president's "extraordinary rendition" program.
"The case involves five men who claim to have been victims of extraordinary rendition -- including current Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed, another plaintiff in jail in Egypt, one in jail in Morocco, and two now free," reports ABC News. "They sued a San Jose Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen Dataplan, accusing the flight-planning company of aiding the CIA in flying them to other countries and secret CIA camps where they were tortured."
"Under the Bush administration, the U.S. government used false claims of national security to dodge judicial scrutiny of extraordinary rendition," Ben Wizner, an ACLU staff attorney, said in a Monday media advisory. "This case presents the first test of the Obama administration's dedication to transparency and willingness to act on its condemnation of torture and rendition. The administration should unequivocally reject the Bush administration's abuse of the state secrets privilege and permit this case to go forward. Victims of extraordinary rendition deserve their day in court."