Obama Wants SJ Firm's CIA Flight Lawsuit Tossed

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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