Supreme Court to Hear Case Claiming CIA Broke Promise to Support Ex-Spies

[CShine]

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court agreed Monday to intervene in a lawsuit claiming that the CIA reneged on a promise of lifetime support to former East Bloc spies now living under assumed names in the United States. The high court agreed to hear an appeal filed by CIA Director George Tenet, who is fighting the lawsuit filed by a husband and wife who defected to the United States from an unidentified country. The suit is at a very early stage, in which the couple identified only as John and Jane Doe want access to documents and other information from the government. The Supreme Court's action means that request is on hold at least until the court rules on the case sometime next year. A federal appeals court refused to dismiss the couple's lawsuit last year.

The Bush administration argued that a Supreme Court case from 1875 prohibits lawsuits against the government over alleged secret contracts for spy services. Since its founding in 1947, the CIA has successfully used the old high court precedent to fend off lawsuits, the government argued in its Supreme Court appeal.

Allowing the couple's claims to go ahead in court "seriously threatens to compromise the United States' foreign relations with other nations and to impair the ability of the CIA to conduct clandestine intelligence operations and to protect national security information from public disclosure," Bush administration lawyer Theodore Olson wrote. The couple's suit "cannot proceed without disclosing facts that would damage national security," namely whether the pair really did spy for the United States and if so what the spying entailed, Olson wrote.

The case involves a man who says he was a high-ranking diplomat who spied against his homeland during the Cold War in return for promises of help defecting and lifetime financial security. He and his wife, also identified as a diplomat, now live near Seattle and are now U.S. citizens. They claim the CIA essentially drafted them as spies during the Cold War, but cut them off financially years later. The CIA initially cited "budget constraints," but later told the couple they had already received enough compensation for their spying services and would get nothing more, their lawyer said.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBDJNDO0WD.html