Next week, a panel of 11 judges from the 9th Circuit federal appeals court will hear the government’s appeal of an earlier ruling that allowed our lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen DataPlan, Inc. to proceed. In 2007, we sued Jeppesen for its role in the Bush administration’s unlawful extraordinary rendition program. Our lawsuit was filed on behalf of five men who were forcibly disappeared by the CIA and then tortured in U.S.-run secret overseas prisons or by foreign intelligence agents.
Today, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of Amir Meshal, an American citizen who was arrested and secretly imprisoned in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia for four months. He was held in secret, without access to a lawyer or any process to contest his detention, and was never charged with a crime. He endured more than 30 harsh interrogations by U.S. officials during his detention.
Good news on national security legislation. I know! I can hardly believe it myself!
The USA Patriot Amendments Act was marked up this week in an epic House Judiciary Committee meeting that spanned two days. The bill, though a bit watered down, still managed to maintain some of its civil liberties protections including:
Letting the never-used “lone wolf” provision expire
Much needed fixes to the John Doe roving wiretap provision
There are now a total of seven bills in Congress addressing the Patriot Act since three of the Act’s provisions are set to expire on December 31st. The USA Patriot Amendments Act is the best of the bunch that Congress is actively considering.
Today, an Italian court convicted 23 Americans for the “extraordinary rendition” of a Muslim cleric who was kidnapped in Milan in 2003. The case is the first of its kind to hold Americans accountable for the rendition of terrorism suspects overseas.
The three-year trial in Milan ended in the conviction of Americans — mostly CIA agents — in the kidnapping of Hassan Moustafa Osama Nasr, known as Abu Omar. Omar was seized on the streets of Milan in 2003 and held in U.S. military bases in Italy and Germany, before being transferred to Egypt, where he claimed he was tortured. After four years in detention, he was released without charge.
Yesterday, a federal appeals court announced that it will hear the government’s appeal of an earlier ruling that allowed the ACLU’s lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary, Jeppesen DataPlan Inc., to go forward. In 2007, we sued Jeppesen for its role in the Bush administration’s unlawful “extraordinary rendition” program. Our lawsuit was filed on behalf of five men who were forcibly disappeared and then tortured in U.S.-run secret overseas prisons or by foreign intelligence agents.
Months after Attorney General Eric Holder said he would release the Obama administration's new policy on the use of the state secrets privilege, it's finally out. The thrust of the new rule: Holder must approve any invocation of the privilege.
Well, that's not much different from the Bush administration's policy, which was to invoke the privilege at the outset, before the case even got its foot in the courthouse door.
On Monday, the Obama administration announced that it would continue the Bush administration practice of kidnapping individuals suspected of terrorism to other countries to be detained or interrogated. The Obama administration also announced that the U.S. would establish a system for monitoring their post-rendition treatment, in an attempt to ensure that individuals will not be tortured once they are transferred to other countries.
Presented with a first opportunity to break away from the Bush administration's legacy of abuse and secrecy, and uphold commitments of transparency and openness, the Obama Justice Department stood by the previous administration's claims of "state secrets" in our lawsuit (Mohamed et al. v. Jeppesen) against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan for its role in the extraordinary rendition program. Before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday, once again, we heard government lawyers argue that the entire subject matter is a "state secret" — one that cannot be reviewed by any court. (You can listen to the oral argument here.)
