Supreme Court Rejects CIA Torture Case

Justices Refuse To Hear German Man's Claims He Was Abducted, Tortured By CIA

(CBS/AP)  The Supreme Court on Tuesday terminated a lawsuit from a man who claims he was abducted and tortured by the CIA, effectively endorsing Bush administration arguments that state secrets would be revealed if the case were allowed to proceed.

Khaled el-Masri, 44, alleged that he was kidnapped by CIA agents in Europe and held in an Afghan prison for four months in a case of mistaken identity.

The administration has not publicly acknowledged that el-Masri was detained, and lower courts dismissed his suit after the administration asserted that state secrets would be revealed if the lawsuit was not blocked. The justices rejected his appeal without comment.

The case had been seen as a test of the administration's legal strategy to stop it and several other national security lawsuits by invoking the doctrine of state secrets. Another lawsuit over the administration's warrantless wiretapping program, also dismissed on state secrets grounds, still is pending before the justices.

"We are very disappointed," Manfred Gnijdic, el Masri's attorney in Germany, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his office in Ulm.

"It will shatter all trust in the American justice system," Gnijdic said, charging that the United States expects every other nation to act responsibly, but refuses to take responsibility for its own actions.

"That is a disaster," Gnijdic said.

CBS News legal analyst Andrew Cohen said the court's decision was "no great surprise."

"In fact it would have been a shock had the court accepted the case for review because the state-secrets doctrine, designed to block these types of lawsuits, is fairly strong. Remember," Cohen said, "even U.S. citizens who have made these sorts of claims haven't gotten far in the federal courts."

Conservative legal scholar Douglas Kmiec said the Bush White House uses the doctrine too broadly. "The notion that state secrets can't be preserved by a judge who has taken an oath to protect the Constitution, that a judge cannot examine the strength of the claim is too troubling to be accepted," said Kmiec, a law professor at Pepperdine University.

The court has not examined the state secrets privilege in more than 50 years.

A coalition of groups favoring greater openness in government says the Bush administration has used the state secrets privilege much more often than its predecessors.

At the height of Cold War tensions between the United States and the former Soviet Union, U.S. presidents used the state secrets privilege six times from 1953 to 1976, according to OpenTheGovernment.org. Since 2001, it has been used 39 times, enabling the government to unilaterally withhold documents from the court system, the group said.

Steven Shapiro, legal director of the ACLU, spoke with CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews about the case.

"What happened to him was lawless," Shapiro said, "You allow the government to essentially prevent the courts from ever independently reviewing the legality of the government's conduct."

El-Masri's case centers on the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program, in which terrorism suspects are captured and taken to foreign countries for interrogation. Human rights groups have heavily criticized the program.

President Bush has repeatedly defended the policies in the war on terror, saying as recently as last week that the U.S. does not engage in torture.

CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports that according to CIA Director Michael Hayden, fewer than 100 terrorists have been held in the agency's secret prisons and less than a third of those were subjected to what he calls "special methods of interrogation" - what others have called "torture".

Hayden defended CIA tactics last month saying "the intelligence they've produced is absolutely irreplaceable. It's been crucial in giving us a better understanding of the enemy we face as well as leads on taking other terrorists off the battlefield."

El-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, says he was mistakenly identified as an associate of the Sept. 11 hijackers and was detained while attempting to enter Macedonia on New Year's Eve 2003.

He claims that CIA agents stripped, beat, shackled, diapered, drugged and chained him to the floor of a plane for a flight to Afghanistan. He says he was held for four months in a CIA-run prison known as the "salt pit" in the Afghan capital of Kabul. After the CIA determined it had the wrong man, el-Masri says, he was dumped on a hilltop in Albania and told to walk down a path without looking back. The lawsuit against former CIA director George Tenet, unidentified CIA agents and others sought damages of at least
$75,000.

The U.S. government has neither confirmed nor denied el-Masri's account. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that U.S. officials acknowledged that El-Masri's detention was a mistake.

El-Masri's account also has been bolstered by European investigations and U.S. news reports. In January, German prosecutors issued arrest warrants for 13 suspected CIA agents who allegedly took part in the operation against him.

El-Masri's lawyers also tried to use a comment by former CIA director George Tenet to show that both the program and el-Masri's case are well-known to the public.

Rather than refuse to comment when asked about El-Masri's claims, Tenet told CNN in May, "I don't believe what he says is true."

The state secrets privilege arose from a 1953 Supreme Court ruling that allowed the executive branch to keep secret, even from the court, details about a military plane's fatal crash.

Three widows sued to get the accident report after their husbands died aboard a B-29 bomber, but the Air Force refused to release it claiming that the plane was on a secret mission to test new equipment. The high court accepted the argument, but when the report was released decades later there was nothing in it about a secret mission or equipment.

The case is El-Masri v. U.S., 06-1613.

[malwolf]

Is this pre-glasnost Russia, Afghanistan under the Taliban, Iraq under Saddam Hussein or Nazi Germany? Can we now expect Jackbooted storm-troopers goose-stepping down any street USA, or getting plucked from our homes for questioning authority? Despite el-Nasri''s not being a US Citizen he surely has the right to redress. We used to set the standards not defile them and it is not acceptable for our Government, it''s agencies, or rogue employees of agencies contracted by our government to administer either collective punishment or punish any person for a crime not committed on our turf or anyone else''s. Are we not in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? What happened to fair trial and equal justice before the law? This was surely an act of terrorism by our own clearly defined legal constructs and it is, in the longterm, we the people who will pay the price for the stupidity of the act itself as well the shortsightedness of this Supreme Court decision upholding it for whatever reason. Support the second amendment as this is the type of behavior it was written to protect us from! Impeach if necessary, but remove those responsible for this man''s abduction from their agency position immediately. If this is the best our intelligence agencies can do and still get a rubber stamp from the Supreme Court and the White House then the rest of us are sitting targets.

[kesac4650]

The guy is a phsycho, being held in a looney bin in Germany because he likes to burn things down, but the press still loves his story.
The press also loves to invent motives for why the Supreme Court didn''t hear his case, when in fact they do not know.

[skyk-2009]

How can you believe he was tortured, especially from a man who would commit a crime like this. This guy is con artist and a dangerous criminal looking to cash in.

Posted by nexgen99 at 04:26 PM : Oct 09, 2007
+ report abuse

I honestly can see NO difference between you guys and the Taliban! You have no respect for the American Spirit or the Rights of the accused. To you people the ends justify the means... the problem is YOU are hurting the nation. You are the face used by Al Qaeda to recruit people to kill us. They are recruiting, as we speak, in Europe and other nations. They are using Bush and the NeoCons actions as evidence and PROOF that what they say about us is fact. It''s working.

[skyk-2009]

Gee, I would like to know just how many of you have been detained? Had their home invaded by police? Where carried away in the middle of the night or had a loved on carried away? Where convicted of a terrorist plot? Where tortured and beat? Had their assets frozen? Please Please HOW many? Or if it was not you personally, please name some American citizen you know who was spirited away.


Posted by nexgen99 at 12:55 PM : Oct 09, 2007

What does THIS have to do with anything. I can only imagine how a young German who''s been approached by Al Qaeda feels about the American System of Justice now. We ONCE stood for something good, for HONESTY and Justice. Now? We are viewed by the entire world the way they once viewed a small segement of our society in the South. I also would guess the REAL Enemy is laughing their behinds off. EVERY thing they wanted to accomplish has been done... We live in fear, our government use''s that fear against us and our rights written in the Constitution are gone, taken away by that same government. Does anyone actually think those we are trying to give our system to can''t see through all this?

One can only hope that GW Bush and his corrupt pieces of sh|t in the Republican Party themselves become victims of extraordinary rendition and turn up in front of the Hague and summarily executed for war crimes.

This must be great news for the worlds leading extremist group - the CIA.

What scum sucking pieces of sh|t they are.

[brianbwb-2009]

No state secrets need be revealed in hearing this man''s case. He was illegally abducted, tortured, and then then the CIA realized they effed up, took him to Afghanistan and dropped him off on a hill.

There are no mitigating factors that any state secrets would reveal, the man was basically thugged, and should have the right to redress.

The "state secrets" BS is just another in a long line of cowardly evasion of responsibility by the perpetrators. The honorable thing for the CIA is to admit their mistake, compensate the man, and don''t do it again. This extreme pettiness in avoiding responsibility is insulting to humanity''s collective intelligence.

[farmerbb]

I would have thought that when the government claims "state secrets", they would have to prove in a closed session inside the judges chambers, exactly what that meant. The judge would then decide on the merits of their claim, and proceed to trail if he thought they were blowing smoke. I am uncomfortable with the idea they can just make this claim, and never be questioned on it, if that is indeed what happened here.

[imnho]

The problem with the Bush adminastration is that they have the attitude that constutional rights are a annonyance, instead of part of what makes this country. If the goverment gets to confortable with redition it will get out of hand and the wrong person(s) will be killed.

One think is apparent is the adminastrations capability to lie and then be convinced that there lie is true. That led to Iraq

[toldyouso21]

We should not be the country we were warned against. tO ALL THE a-HOLES THAT DON''''T care about the silly german who got ruffed up, until YOU HAVE TO TRAVEL ABROAD. They will use you like we use them, simple. That is why it is important not to act like a jackass.
Posted by icunow2 at 06:04 PM : Oct 09, 2007

hate to break this to you--but THAT is the problem.. Many of the people who support and believe in Bush will NEVER travel abroad and don''t want to. Many will never leave their own state and some will never set foot out of their county or...(gasp) even their town. I KNOW people who have never been to a Red Lobster, who refuse to go to a "big city (with more than 80K people in it) and whose biggest dream that they may save up for--is NOT to go someplace else in the world--but to go one day, to Disney world.

LOTS of people like this--so when you say we will get mistreated in other countries--understand that if/when that happens--these same people will think--"they had no business leaving America in the first place"

You are dealing with closed minds. The virtue to them is not much gets out or changes for them--the sadness and detriment to America is that not much can change or sinks in for them--this means they can never grow or be enlightened--what they do is feed their beast with Limbaugh and O''Reilley and never travel anywhere else that could challenge what they have already been told to think.

[toldyouso21]

That''''s ok....there''''s PLENTY of bedwetting libs who will listen to him and help spread his lies.
Posted by SignOf4 at 01:53 PM : Oct 09, 2007

When this story first broke years ago (when the man first made it back to Germany) the US refused to speak but later, Rice did state that the man had been dropped off by the American military in Afghanistan though she would not answer whether he had been tortured or renditioned. EVeryone acts like that was not said. What the man said about rendition was not a lie--nor was it a lie when the Canadian man said similar things. Bush admitted to renditioning in early 2006--so that is not in dispute, though rendition is illegal in most European countries and we have signed treaties stating we do not and would not do it. So what lies are you talking about?

[toldyouso21]

Gee, I would like to know just how many of you have been detained? Had their home invaded by police? Where carried away in the middle of the night or had a loved on carried away? Where convicted of a terrorist plot? Where tortured and beat? Had their assets frozen? Please Please HOW many? Or if it was not you personally, please name some American citizen you know who was spirited away.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Posted by nexgen99 at 12:55 PM : Oct 09, 2007


LOL. YOu did not mean to, I''m sure--but you hit the nail on the head. ''since people who are renditioned or taken away for terrorism are not allowed to see or speak to their families or even have a lawyer--we can never tell you how many there are or will be--and you can''t either. And if anyone was taken away--they sure as hell are not likely to be back and if they do somehow get released, they sure as hell are not going to spout off on a blog. Your question makes about as much sense as asking how many people on the blogs have died due to an accident? Who can say? Those that know can''t talk--they are dead and not able to communicate anything. But based on your logic--that must mean no one has died--since no one can say they did. RIIIIIGHT. lmao

[toldyouso21]

We are truly falling apart as a society. Even our justice dept is corrupt. By this action, a President can do whatever he wants--to whomever he wants and never have to answer for what he did--just by claiming "national security " status. When this person from another country was renditioned, it became an international case and according to our own constitution--outside the purview and/or judgement of the United States. According to the at portion of the Constitution concerning treaties or potential international crimes (ratified in 1797) "Neither Congress, or the President or the Supreme court would have jurisdiction in matters involving international laws or breach of agreements, or treaties and that America MUST submit to the will of an international tribunal. That would be the Hague and that would be war crimes and the breach? That part of the Geneva Conventions that forbids rendition. America rescinded its signature on the Geneva Conventions in May 2005 and said it was retroactive to 2003--but what they say and what is--are 2 very different things. Our President is not only rogue--we are a rogue nation now and if the center is corrupt--it cannot hold--and things fall apart. Some are so afraid of outsiders destroying us--they miss the signs that we are destroying ourselves from within--we now torture and kidnap people--to torture them--and we make lots of mistakes.....

[tiredofthebs]

Bush or rather SHRUB is a war criminal ..... PERIOD ! Let''s see if the Hague bring that NAZI up on charges once Hillary is elected.

-IMPEACH BUSH

[emsaund1]

For this round, yes, because I havent posted anything. But, we will discount all of the other times I''ve blasted your atheistic communistic views of society.

[gkc99]

"As many as it takes"--Posted by nexgen99


This shows the total moral emptiness of the neoconscum position--they believe they can protect the innocent by torturing and murdering the innocent.

Disconnect?--you betcha! Until you realize that neocon Repugs don''t give a rat''s a$$ about the innocent. What they love is power, power to control you the same way the ayatollahs and mullahs want to do.

The neocons are America''s very own Taliban. Choosing between them is like deciding whether it''s better to eat *** or turds.

[cdfoxtrot]

Typical. Rules only apply to all countries, other than the US. The US can do whatever the hell it likes and expects everyone else to just go along with it.

[emsaund1]

TUCKER -- That''s perhaps the first thing that you''ve said (Even though a quote from Jefferson), that makes any sense...

[icunow2]

Additionally, our country has a big problem with telling the American people the truth. It is the first order of business to lie and deny. The guy was probably innocent, but hey who cares if he was. I do because I am trying to keep what little of my rights I have intact. By allowing the clowns to do anything they want so we will be safe, will have it''s consequenses. It''s the German today and the irish tomorrow, the Italian, the jew, the french, the asian, the english AMERICANS!!!!!!!!

[icunow2]

At one time we lead in the world and were respected. Walk softly and carry a big stick, don''t start anything but make damm sure you finish it! Well, George W. Bush took care of that. We are buffoons in the eyes of our friends abroad as well as our enemies. The entire country was lied to about WMD''s and all voted to invade. Now we need to move forward and it will be at least two years of damage control. We should not be the country we were warned against. tO ALL THE a-HOLES THAT DON''T care about the silly german who got ruffed up, until YOU HAVE TO TRAVEL ABROAD. They will use you like we use them, simple. That is why it is important not to act like a jackass.