But it’s true. In a San Francisco federal court, five men who claim they were abducted and sent to foreign countries to be tortured, have been battling the Bush Administration, which claimed that “state secrets” and “national security” would be put at risk if the case were allowed to proceed. On Monday, the Obama Justice Department lawyers told the Ninth Circuit that they agreed with the Bush Administration argument. The Justice Department lawyer said, at one point, that once the judges review the classified evidence they “will see that this case cannot be litigated.”
The liberal legal scold Glenn Greenwald calls this a 180-degree reversal from Obama’s campaign rhetoric. And he lays out a strong case. As he notes, the Obama campaign listed the Bush administration’s heavy use of the “state secrets” priveledge as part of the “problem” with Washington that Obama planned to change.