Senator Feingold Hits Obama Administration Over Extraordinary Rendition Decision

[babylonsister]

Thank you, Senator Feingold! I am also troubled.

Exclusive: Senator Feingold Hits Obama Administration Over Extraordinary Rendition Decision


Senator Russ Feingold is sharply criticizing the Obama administration over its controversial decision to maintain the Bush administration’s position in a closely watched lawsuit involving alleged victims of extraordinary rendition, a decision that generated a storm of criticism yesterday.

“I am troubled by reports that the Obama administration has decided to invoke the state secrets privilege in a case brought by five men who claim to have been the victims of extraordinary rendition,” Feingold said in a statement sent to me by his office, in a rare instance of criticism directed at Obama by a Senator in his own party.

The case has been closely watched as an early signal of how Obama would handle one of the Bush administration’s most controversial “war on terror” legal weapons — specifically, whether the Obama administration would uphold the Bush administration’s claims of state secret privileges, citing national security, to prevent courts from ruling on such matters. Feingold’s statement suggests he intends to maintain a controversial posture towards the White House on the issue.

Feingold’s office also confirmed that he is seeking a secret briefing on the case from the Obama administration — something that could put the administration on the spot and potentially ratchet up the confrontation.

“I have asked for a classified briefing so that I can understand the reasons for this decision,” Feingold’s statement said.

more...

http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/torture/exclusive-senator-feingold-hits-obama-administration-over-extraordinary-rendition-decision/

[HillbillyBob]

1. Good!

nt

[slipslidingaway]

2. Thank you Senator Feingold! n/t

[TheWraith]

3. Oh for crying out loud...

Their "decision" was "We're not doing anything until we've completed a full review." What the hell is so hard for people to understand about that?

[catnhatnh]

4. You are Absolutely right....

that said, this is a good thing. Putting the spotlight on this will hasten the review and the changes and all of this will happen in the MSM and people can watch what real change is about.

[babylonsister]

5. Not according to this: rendition has been 'preserved' under an

executive order issued by Obama...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-na-rendition1-2009feb01,0,4661244.story


Under executive orders issued by Obama recently, the CIA still has authority to carry out what are known as renditions, secret abductions and transfers of prisoners to countries that cooperate with the United States.

Current and former U.S. intelligence officials said that the rendition program might be poised to play an expanded role going forward because it was the main remaining mechanism -- aside from Predator missile strikes -- for taking suspected terrorists off the street.

The rendition program became a source of embarrassment for the CIA, and a target of international scorn, as details emerged in recent years of botched captures, mistaken identities and allegations that prisoners were turned over to countries where they were tortured.

The European Parliament condemned renditions as "an illegal instrument used by the United States." Prisoners swept up in the program have sued the CIA as well as a Boeing Co. subsidiary accused of working with the agency on dozens of rendition flights.

But the Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.

The decision underscores the fact that the battle with Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups is far from over and that even if the United States is shutting down the prisons, it is not done taking prisoners.

[mmonk]

6. Listen very carefully. They (meaning the Obama administration)

invoked the state secrets privilege in this case. Their position in this case is IDENTICAL to the bush administration's. The case is now in the hands of the appeals court whether to allow the case to go forward but most likely, it is OVER for the plaintiffs in this case. There is NO review in this case.

[Oilwellian]

7. You keep on believing that...

but it doesn't make it true.

In THIS particular case, Obama claimed States Secrets, JUST like Bush did. He didn't ask for more time to "review" the case, the words "state secrets" were invoked in that courtroom yesterday.

He may be "reviewing" other claims of States Secrets, but in THIS particular case, 5 men were denied their day in court.

I'd really love for you to point out where DOJ's Little said to the court yesterday "we're not doing anything until we've completed a full review."

[chill_wind]

10. They were telling reporters they had already reviewed it in advance.

Greenwald:

(...)

There's no doubt about that. Wizner pointed out that after the interview he did with me 10 days ago, there was substantial press coverage of this matter. Both The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times wrote editorials in the last week demanding that the Obama administration adhere to its prior pledge and abandon the Bush administration's reliance on "state secrets" in this case. Wizner said that reporters calling the DOJ were told that the case was under active review.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/09/state_secrets/index.html


The NYT quotes:

But Mr. Letter said that the lower court judge, James Ware, did receive classified information and came to the correct conclusion in dismissing the case last year. He urged the judges to pore over the same material, and predicted “you will understand precisely, as Judge Ware did, why this case can’t be litigated.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/us/10torture.html?_r=1&hp

They knew for a while this one was coming at them.

[ThomWV]

8. No review of past bad deeds is required to set a new and good policy

[chill_wind]

9. They didn't ask for more review. They invoked the '"nuclear option."

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

You Cover It Up, You Own It

David Luban

Many of us have been wondering which of the Bush Administration's disgraceful litigation positions the Obama/Holder DOJ would abandon. Yesterday's Ninth Circuit hearing in Mohamed v. Jeppesen DataPlan was a newsworthy first start. It's up there with the maiden voyage of the Titanic and the flight of the Hindenburg. The excellent Glen Greenwald summarizes the bad news here. In brief, DOJ lawyer Douglas Letter astonished the judges on the panel by defending the outrageous Bush abuse of the "state secrets" privilege in a lawsuit by rendition victims against the CIA's travel service that rendered them. Letter informed the incredulous judges that the new administration had decided to maintain the old administration's position.

The state secrets privilege is the so-called "nuclear option" in litigation, which makes lawsuits against the government vanish without a trace by declaring unilaterally that all the facts the plaintiffs would use to prove their case are state secrets. With no facts to back the claim, plaintiffs' cases must be dismissed.

This one is particularly egregious, because most of the facts are well known and well documented through other sources. One question is whether the state secrets doctrine concerns facts or documents. That is: does it mean that government documents cannot be entered into evidence because they are secret? Or does it mean that the underlying facts are "state secrets" that can never be ventilated in an American courtroom, even if they are well known everywhere else in the world and the plaintiff can prove them using publicly available evidence?

The latter position -- that the state secrets privilege is a rule about facts, not about evidence -- is absurd, but it is the government's position. It's absurd, of course, because there is no point in keeping secrets that aren't secrets any longer. As the ACLU's Ben Wizner who argued against the government yesterday, said of another godawful state secrets case, "really the only place in the world where Khalid El-Masri's case could not be discussed was in a federal courtroom. Everywhere else it could be discussed without harm to the nation, but in a federal court before a federal judge there, all kinds of terrible things could happen."

more: http://balkin.blogspot.com/2009/02/you-cover-it-up-you-own-it.html

[chill_wind]

17. Oh-- and the guy who pushed the button was no "low-tier Bush flunky..'

http://www.law.gwu.edu/Faculty/profile.aspx?id=8229
Douglas Letter


He went prepared.

[EFerrari]

12. Nope. Their position was to assert state secrets at the hearing here

and to have Panetta argue FOR rendition at his hearing.

[Usrename]

14. I think you are mistaking this case for the Gitmo criminal cases.

This one is different, it's a civil case, and the ACLU is stunned that Obama has decided to continue with Bush's obstructing the legal process.

[Pastiche423]

11. Kudos, Senator Feingold

And thank you very, very much.

[undeterred]

13. Thank you, Senator Feingold.

:hi:

[slipslidingaway]

15. Greenwald -The 180-degree reversal of Obama's State Secrets position

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/10/obama/index.html

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. Bravo to Feingold. This is an area where "change" should mean change not more of the same. K&R