Obama Wants SJ Firm's CIA Flight Lawsuit Tossed

[keepCAblue]

Source: CBS - 5 / AP

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / AP / BCN) ―

A government lawyer urged a federal appeals court in San Francisco Monday to toss a lawsuit accusing a Boeing Corp. subsidiary based in San Jose of illegally helping the CIA fly suspected terrorists overseas to be tortured, maintaining a Bush administration position that the case would jeopardize national security.

The American Civil Liberties Union and others had called on the White House to change direction and drop its move to dismiss the suit. The organization filed the lawsuit on behalf of five men swept up in the "extraordinary rendition" program and who are still being held in various prisons around the world.

The lawsuit claims that San Jose-based Jeppesen DataPlan Inc. should be punished for allegedly providing the CIA airplanes and crew to carry out the program that included torture.

The U.S. government intervened in the case and a trial court judge last year tossed it out after CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden invoked the government's so-called "state secrets privilege," which lets intelligence agencies bar the use of evidence in court cases that threaten national security.


Read more: http://cbs5.com/local/jeppeson.rendition.aclu.2.930896.html

[Baby Snooks]

1. Something wrong with the picture...

"The American Civil Liberties Union and others had called on the White House to change direction and drop its move to dismiss the suit."

[John Q. Citizen]

2. What do you mean?

[robinlynne]

14. makes perfect sense to me. We have a new president. the ACLU calls on him to do the right thing.

What's wrong with the picture?

[Freddie Stubbs]

15. Perhaps the President beleives this course of action is "the right thing"

[peacetalksforall]

3. What's going on here. Is something bigger coming down? Does it fit in some other place?

Without knowing more, I throw my hat in with the ACLU.

[Aviation Pro]

4. Oh, fer cryin' out loud....

....Jeppesen does not provide, lease, rent or lend airplanes. They provide flight planning and weather services through their electronic database and oh by the way, it's the National Aviation Authorities that provide clearances through their airspace.

Sheesh.

[FrenchieCat]

6. Thanks for trying, but this fact will fall on deaf ears.

It's not about punishing the accessories as much as procecuting the ones who gave the orders....
but leave it to some at DU to continue down the path they started on.

Hope I'll hear a "We screwed up" by some of these shit stirrers sooner than later. :eyes:

[chill_wind]

10. Yes, it's all a big plot against Obama.

The case has been working through the courts for two years, however inconvenient the timing of this latest date.

[chill_wind]

9. Are you sure?

http://www.metroactive.com/metro/06.13.07/jeppesen-0724.html

[struggle4progress]

13. ACLU Fact Sheet on "Air CIA"

Since at least 2001, Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing, the world's largest aerospace company, has provided direct and substantial services for the United States' so-called "extraordinary rendition" program, in return for undisclosed fees ...

Publicly available records demonstrate that Jeppesen, based in San Jose, CA, facilitated more than 70 secret rendition flights over a four-year period to countries where it knew or reasonably should have known that detainees are routinely tortured or otherwise abused in contravention of universally accepted legal standards ...

The services provided by Jeppesen have been crucial to the functioning of the extraordinary rendition program, according to the ACLU lawsuit. Jeppesen operates one of the largest aviation trip-planning services in the world, and has been one of the main providers of flight and logistical support services to aircraft used in the program.

Jeppesen's participation in the rendition flights has included furnishing aircraft crew with flight planning services including itinerary, route, weather, and fuel planning; responsibility for the preparation of flight plans; facilitation of customs clearance and arrangements for ground transportation, catering, and hotel accommodation for aircraft crew upon landing; and provision of physical security for aircraft and crew ...

http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/27516res20061127.html

[earcandle]

5. They are planning to continue the kidnapping?

[chill_wind]

7. Jeppesen DataPlan Inc (Sourcewatch).

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Jeppesen_Dataplan,_Inc.

[chill_wind]

8. Mohamed et al. v. Jeppesen

Mohamed et al. v. Jeppesen

In 2007, the ACLU brought a lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan, Inc. for their role in the extraordinary rendition of five men, all foreign nationals, who were apprehended and forcibly disappeared to foreign and U.S.-run prisons overseas where they were detained and tortured.

The suit charges that Jeppesen knowingly participated in the extraordinary rendition program by providing critical flight planning and logistical support services to aircraft and crews used by the CIA to forcibly disappear these five men to detention and interrogation.

Senior Jeppesen officials have openly acknowledged that the company was involved in and profiting from what one of them termed "torture flights." Shortly after the suit was filed, the government intervened to try and block the litigation by inappropriately asserting the "state secrets privilege," claiming further litigation would undermine national security interests, even though much of the evidence needed to try the case was already available to the public. The case was dismissed in February 2008, and the ACLU is appealing the dismissal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

more:http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/rendition.html

ACLU video: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=385&topic_id=270269&mesg_id=270269

Mohamed v. Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc

Brennen Center for Justice
at New York University School of Law
http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/mohamed_v_jeppesen_dataplan_inc_ninth_circuit_court_of_appeals/

[ima_sinnic]

11. fix is in for cover-up of bush-cheney war crimes

"change" is nothing but slick marketing. If the Guantanamo detainees are granted fair trials, the fact that there is no case against any of them, and that they were tortured, will implicate bush-cheney in torture/war crimes--and we couldn't have that now, could we? Obama wants to "look ahead," so forget any idea of justice, either for the Guantanamo detainees and others who were tortured or for the war crimes of bush-cheney. Just as Iran-Contra and BCCI bank were swept under the rug by Bill Clinton, enabling the same traitors and blood-suckers to come back with bush43, so Obama seems intent on denying the American people the right to punish the traitors who committed war crimes in their name.

pffft. take your "change" and shove it. without consequences for war crimes, the rest is nothing but bullshit.

on edit: meant to add link from related discussion:
Obama Administration Maintains Bush Position on 'Extraordinary Rendition' Lawsuit
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3730525

[Baby Snooks]

12. Change you can believe in....

You can believe in it if you are just so blinded by partisanship that you think anything a Democrat does is okay. This is not okay. This is not change you can believe in simply because it is not change.

Barack Obama condemned the policies of the Bush administration during his inaugural address. And then turns around and ensures the policies continue. Time for people to finally open their eyes.

Dick Cheney tells the Republicans that Barack Obama is inviting another terrorist attack byb reversing the policies of George W Bush, which he claims have kept us safe, and the Republicans don't realize that Barack Obama so far has not changed the policies but instead seems intent on continuing them and so if we are attacked, well, they will blame Barack Obama. Of course the Democrats don't realize it either. And some of them will blame Barack Obama as well.

This country has been divided along many lines. Mainly the partisan lines. In reality, there is only one party in Washington now. And it does not serve the people.

We are not safe. And our greatest enemy is within. All you need to do to realize that is to remember what happened on 9/11 which if nothing else was allowed to happen because it fit into the agenda of this one party. Which seeks dominion in the world. Which is why at one point those who believed in the ideology were called dominionists.

Some would say the dominionists, they never act alone, participated in it which few could actually even consider because it was so horrific a thought until the revelations about Princess Haifa were revealed during the investigation of Riggs Bank.

While calling for seizure and prosecution of those who support terrorism, Princess Haifa and Prince Bandar were whisked away to safety. Just as the bin Laden family was. Including two sons-in-law who had been convicted in Jordan of terroristic activity.

How about some extraordinary rendition with Princess Haifa? Lets kidnap her and fly her off somewhere and then torture her and find the truth.

How about it Mr. President?