SUPREME COURT DENIES REQUEST TO HEAR LAWSUIT BY VICTIMS OF CIA EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION PROGRAM

May 16, 2011

http://www.aclu.org/national-security/supreme-court-denies-request-hear-lawsuit-victims-cia-extraordinary-rendition-prog

ACLU Says Government Improperly Using “State Secrets”
Privilege to Avoid Judicial Review

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org

NEW YORK – The U.S. Supreme Court today announced it would not hear a lawsuit
filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of five men who were
kidnapped by the CIA, sent to U.S.-run prisons overseas and tortured as part of
the Bush administration’s “extraordinary rendition” program. The ACLU and the
ACLU of Northern California sued Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan in May
2007, charging that the company knowingly provided direct logistical support to
the aircraft and crews used by the CIA for the program. Although the federal
government was not named in the lawsuit, it intervened for the sole purpose of
claiming that the case should be dismissed on the basis of the “state secrets”
privilege, an argument that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
accepted by a 6 to 5 vote in September 2010.

“With today’s decision, the Supreme Court has refused once again to give
justice to torture victims and to restore our nation’s reputation as a guardian
of human rights and the rule of law,” said Ben Wizner, litigation director of
the ACLU National Security Project, who argued the case before the appeals
court. “To date, every victim of the Bush administration’s torture regime has
been denied his day in court. But while the torture architects and their
enablers have escaped the judgment of the courts, they will not escape the
judgment of history.”

“Today’s decision will not end the debate over the government’s use of the
‘state secrets’ privilege to avoid judicial scrutiny for illegal actions carried
out in the name of fighting terrorism,” said Steven R. Shapiro, legal director
of the ACLU. “In a nation committed to the rule of law, unlawful activity should
be exposed, not hidden behind a ‘state secrets’ designation.”

It has been more than 50 years since the Supreme Court has reviewed the use
of the “state secrets” privilege. In recent years, the U.S. government has
asserted state secrecy to justify the refusal to disclose information about its
illegal wiretapping program, the use of torture and other breaches of domestic
and international law.

“The government’s continued assertion of ‘state secrets’ to avoid any
judicial review of torture threatens the fundamental principle of separation of
powers,” said Steven Watt, staff attorney with the ACLU Human Rights Program.
“It is disappointing that no court has fulfilled its critical constitutional
function of ruling on the legality of the Bush administration’s torture
policies. The Supreme Court should have taken this case to affirm that victims
of torture are entitled to a remedy.”

More information about the case is available online at: www.aclu.org/jeppesen