Misblog

Originally Published February 09, 2009; Last Updated and Republished August 10, 2009:

The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, San Francisco will hear oral arguments this morning (9:00 a.m. Courtroom 1, 3rd Floor; Circuit Judges Schroeder, Canby, Hawkins; 08-15693) in the important civil case of Mohamed et al. v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., a Boeing Aerospace subsidiary.

Appellants assert, based on flight records and other data, that Jeppesen planes aided the CIA's extraordinary rendition for interrogation, torture, and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment¹.

More after oral arguments...(audio file posted here, usually within a day of argument).

UPDATED 02/10/2009 The appeals court again (see AT&T illegal wiretapping litigation) focused on the relatively narrow issue of whether our government can assert a "blanket" State Secrets privilege to dismiss a non-"Totten"², as opposed to a "Reynolds" (itself underpinned on a false assertion of State Secrets), case³.

Web:

• UPDATED 08/10/2009 UPI, U.S. fighting Gitmo rendition lawsuit.

  Unfortunately, the Obama administration is continuing to defend the profound lawlessness of King Bush the Idiot's realm.

• UPDATED 06/13/2009 ACLU, Justice Department Asks Court For Rehearing In Extraordinary Rendition Lawsuit Against Boeing Subsidiary.
• UPDATED 04/29/2009 NYT, Court Allows Civil Torture Case to Proceed. Download decision here.
• Rendition Suit A Test Of Obama Transparency
• ACLU, Mohamed et al. v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc

Res: UPDATED 02/12/2009 State Secrets Protection Act.
Senators Leahy, Specter, Feingold, and Kennedy (along with CoSponsors Senators Whitehouse and McCaskill) announce legislation (S. 417; not yet in Thomas for 111th Congress; reintroduced legislation from 110th) aimed at correcting current and prior abuses in the use of the State Secrets privilege.

-----notes-----

1. Investigative reporter Stephen Grey, in his recent book Ghost Plane, has written a fascinating account of how he and others were able to penetrate the CIA's illegal extraordinary rendition program (see Misblog's, How Reporters Penetrated CIA Rendition and Torture Program).

2. UPDATED 02/10/2009 Totten doctrine represents a narrow class of cases where an individual contractually agrees to be a clandestine spy and subsequently wants to reveal their clandestine relationship—they cannot if the other party to the contract (usually the CIA) does not agree.

Although State Secrets privilege differs completely from the Totten Doctrine DOJ arguments wrongfully merge them by repeatedly asking the court to grant blanket State Secrets immunity from third party scrutiny for any Totten Doctrine relationship they enter into!

The Totten Doctrine is why every book you read about the CIA written by a former CIA employee says the same thing, albeit many different ways. DOJ is seeking to bootstrap the Totten Doctrine into a blank State Secrets privilege by asserting in court it also gets to decide who reads the book!

3. UPDATED 02/10/2009 It's curious that the Obama administration would permit its Department of Justice to appear and assert the same extreme logic its predecessor asserted, bootstrap the Totten Doctrine into a blanket State Secrets privilege immunity.

Our government, as it usually does in State Secrets cases, offers to better argue its case in secret session and implying some "god-like" attributes are needed to deal with its secret information. Attributes it explicitly and implicitly asserts judges do not independently possess—it’s as nonsensical as it is untrue and our judges must say so!

In response to the government's offer of augmented secret arguments a judge wondered, out loud, how you can argue with yourself?!

If the Executive of our government persists in continually reminding our Judiciary they’re "playing with fire" because it rejects blanket application of a State Secrets privilege our Judiciary must remind it they'll keep a fire extinguisher nearby.

President Obama's continual assertion of the need for a "new" government transparency is hardly consistent with sending the DOJ to assert a blanket "State Secrets", in this case.