SUPREME COURT GIVES DE FACTO APPROVAL TO KEY ABUSES OF DICTATORSHIPS:

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SUPREME COURT GIVES DE FACTO APPROVAL TO KEY ABUSES OF DICTATORSHIPS:
DISAPPEARING AND TORTURING PEOPLE

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 - The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to hear an
appeal filed on behalf of a German citizen of Lebanese descent who
claims he was abducted by United States agents and then tortured by them
while imprisoned in Afghanistan. Without comment, the justices let stand
an appeals court ruling that the state secrets privilege, a judicially
created doctrine that the Bush administration has invoked to win
dismissal of lawsuits that touch on issues of national security,
protected the government's actions from court review. In refusing to
take up the case, the justices declined a chance to elaborate on the
privilege for the first time in more than 50 years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/washington/10scotus.html?_
r=2&ref=washington&oref=slogin&oref=slogin


MARK SHERMAN, AP - [Khaled] El-Masri, 44, a German citizen of Lebanese
descent, says he was mistakenly identified as an associate of the Sept.
11 hijackers and was detained while attempting to enter Macedonia on New
Year's Eve 2003. He claims that CIA agents stripped, beat, shackled,
diapered, drugged and chained him to the floor of a plane for a flight
to Afghanistan. He says he was held for four months in a CIA-run prison
known as the "salt pit" in the Afghan capital of Kabul. After the CIA
determined it had the wrong man, el-Masri says, he was dumped on a
hilltop in Albania and told to walk down a path without looking back.

"We are very disappointed," Manfred Gnijdic, el-Masri's attorney in
Germany, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his
office in Ulm. "It will shatter all trust in the American justice
system," Gnijdic said, charging that the United States expects every
other nation to act responsibly, but refuses to take responsibility for
its own actions. "That is a disaster," Gnijdic said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071010/ap_on_go_su_co/scotus_cia_lawsuit;_
ylt=Al0uEw_AZ4CCuKRoK178mb2s0NUE


JUSTIN RAIMONDO, ANTIWAR -"This is a sad day not only for Khaled
el-Masri, but for all Americans who care about the rule of law and our
nation's reputation in the world," said Ben Wizner, a staff attorney for
the American Civil Liberties Union, which brought the case on el-Masri's
behalf. "By denying justice to an innocent victim of this country's
anti-terror policies, the court has provided the government with
complete immunity for its shameful human rights and due process
violations," he added, noting that the administration of President
George W. Bush has asserted state secrecy to avoid disclosing
information regarding key aspects of its "global war on terror,"
including the use of torture, in several other cases as well.

"When the government hides behind the state secrets doctrine to evade
accountability for abuses, and the courts accept that justification
despite clear evidence of wrongdoing, it undermines the whole idea of
enforcement of human rights," agreed Elisa Massimino, the Washington
director of Human Rights First. "Congress has let the CIA program of
rendition and secret detention go on long enough. It is time to bring
this practice under control," she added.

http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=11733

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