ACLU Appeals Dismissal of Rendition Lawsuit
by TChris
The ACLU has appealed the dismissal of a lawsuit it brought on behalf of Khaled el-Masri (TalkLeft background collected here).
Kuwaiti-born Masri says he was abducted in Macedonia in December 2001, then drugged, beaten and flown by the CIA to Afghanistan, where he was held as a terrorism suspect for five months.
The government persuaded the judge that allowing the case to move forward would jeopardize national security -- a convenient defense that shields government actors from accountability for their monstrous misbehavior.
"If this decision stands, the government will have a blank check to shield even its most shameful conduct from accountability,'' said ACLU attorney Ben Wizner.
Update: While the "state's secrets" defense was rejected (at least for now) in this lawsuit accusing AT&T of helping the government conduct illegal eavesdropping, the defense prevailed in a different suit against AT&T that was dismissed today.
Citing national security, a federal judge Tuesday threw out a lawsuit aimed at blocking AT&T from giving telephone records to the government for use in the war on terror.
"The court is persuaded that requiring AT&T to confirm or deny whether it has disclosed large quantities of telephone records to the federal government could give adversaries of this country valuable insight into the government's intelligence activities," U.S. District Judge Matthew F. Kennelly said.
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