The original content of Democracy Now! Headlines appears under the Creative
Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 License (United States). For more, including their other
shows and media, visit www.democracynow.org.
February 10, 2009

Dismissing Torture Case, Obama Continues Bush Assertion of “State Secrets”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------



The Obama administration has decided to continue a Bush administration
policy of invoking “state secrets” to dismiss a lawsuit accusing a
Boeing subsidiary of helping the CIA secretly transport prisoners to
torture chambers overseas. On Monday, a San Francisco appeals court
heard arguments on the American Civil Liberties Union’s attempt to
reinstate the case against Jeppesen International Trip Planning on
behalf of five former prisoners. The lawsuit accused Jeppesen of
arranging at least seventy flights since 2001 as part of the CIA’s
extraordinary rendition program. The Bush administration successfully
won the case’s dismissal on the grounds it would risk exposing “state
secrets.” On Monday, Obama administration lawyers told judges the
government’s stance is unchanged. ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero
said, “The] Justice Department stood up in court today and said that it
would continue the Bush policy of invoking state secrets to hide the
reprehensible history of torture, rendition and the most grievous human
rights violations committed by the American government. This is not
change. This is definitely more of the same.”



.