Legal News

Rendition case may clarify new administration's stance on torture

By Richard Binder

The public is likely to get its first close look at the Obama administration's policies on torture, secrecy and prisoners' rights in a San Francisco courtroom today, when federal judges press a government lawyer for a position on the practice known as extraordinary rendition.

Five men - one now imprisoned in Egypt, one in Morocco, one at Guantanamo Bay and two who have been released without charges - are asking the Ninth Circuit to reinstate a lawsuit that accuses a San Jose flight-planning company of helping the CIA transport them to overseas holding cells for interrogation and torture.

The suit against Jeppesen Dataplan, a Boeing Co. subsidiary, has never gone to trial. The Bush administration intervened and persuaded U.S. District Judge James Ware to dismiss the case in February 2008. Since then, the Justice Department has urged the appeals court to uphold Ware?s ruling.  on the grounds that allowing it to proceed could expose state secrets and harm national security. But the ACLU is looking for President Obama to reverse course.

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Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on February 09, 2009 (boomark / email).