Masri's case - worth following

this case has particular interest for me since i was in in macedonia immediately prior to and immediately after the time this occurred...

Khaled al-Masri was supposed to have been disappeared by black-hooded CIA paramilitaries in the dead of night. One minute he was riding a bus in Macedonia, the next -- poof -- gone. Grabbed by Macedonian agents, handed off to junior CIA operatives in Skopje and then secretly flown to a prison in Afghanistan that didn't officially exist, to be interrogated with rough measures that weren't officially on the books.

[...]

[The U.S. government argues], citing the state-secrets privilege, that to proceed with the case would damage national security and that this damage outweighs any legal rights Masri may have.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District agreed with the government in May.

If they have their way this time, the pale Justice Department lawyers swaying back in their chairs before the three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit would prohibit any judge and any jury anywhere from ever hearing the arguments in Masri's six legal pleadings and 40 exhibits, more than 1,000 pages in all. Much of the evidence was unearthed by German prosecutors and European Parliament investigators.

does the government's case hold water...?

Is a state secret still a secret if everyone knows it? That's what the court case boils down to at this point.

Masri's lawyers say no.

They point to President Bush's Sept. 6, 2006, disclosure that the CIA ran secret prisons abroad and conducted covert rendition flights as part of its counterterrorism campaign.

They point to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's statement that if there were injustices in these programs, they can be remedied in U.S. courts.

They point to the testimony of Schily before the German Parliament just last week in which he said that then-U.S. Ambassador Daniel R. Coats had told him that the CIA had mistakenly imprisoned Masri and offered an apology -- not to Masri, but to the German government. They point to reams and reams of official German evidence.

and, of course, the justice department disagrees...

The CIA and Justice Department lawyers strongly disagree. They argue that allowing a case to go forward could lead to a "cascading" of disclosures, many unforeseen, and that foreign governments would refuse to work in secret with the CIA for fear they could end up in court.

stay tuned...

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