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Could The Ninth Circuit Court's Decision To Protect State Secrets End Up Hurting National Security?

Chantae Reden |
September 11, 2010 | 1:36 p.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

Experts say the Obama administration's stance on state-secret issues is similar to President Bush's. (Creative Commons)
Experts say the Obama administration's stance on state-secret issues is similar to President Bush's. (Creative Commons)
Five foreign men who claim to have been tortured by the CIA cannot sue a Boeing subsidiary they say aided in their kidnapping, according to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. 

The foreign men claim to have been removed abruptly and subjected to torture where they were beaten, electrically shocked, starved and held in isolated darkness. The court ruled 6-5 that the presentation of the case would reveal secret intelligence and jeopardize national security.

This case, which was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, highlights the tension between civil liberties and national security. The court concluded that the Constitutional right to trial is secondary to the protection of state intelligence. 

Without access to the secret intelligence involved in this case, it is difficult to judge the extent to which national security is being protected and what the court’s decision is specifically protecting. But some experts say the decision to dismiss the case could be an even greater threat to national security.

Jeff Victoroff, an associate professor of clinical neurology and psychiatry at USC wrote in an e-mail, “There will be greater net damage to national security in what appears to be denying these men basic rights and now covering that up, than in demonstrating what makes democracy great by allowing the suit to proceed, which - depending on the facts as determined by the triers of fact - might lead to universally-understood just punishment for willful, self-serving violators of both human rights and the U.S. constitution.”  

The dismissal of the case is supported by the state-secret doctrine, which holds that government acts committed in war time are protected from judicial inspection. The doctrine is supported by the Obama administration, even though Obama promised to abolish the use of torture tactics against terrorist suspects during his presidential campaign.

Experts note that the state-secret doctrine is one of few topics on which President Obama seems to agree with Bush-era ideas.

“Quite generally I have found that both Bush and Obama to be on the same wave length," Carl Christol, an emeritus professor of political science at USC, wrote in an e-mail.

Victoroff said he worries that this decision could jeopardize U.S. relations with some countries.

"[Other countries] are alert to the evidence for and against our nation, our policies, and our citizens being champions of justice versus champions of Western Christian hegemony," Victoroff wrote. 

 

 

Reach reporter Chantae Reden here.

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