Jeppeson Renditions: CIA Memo Disclosure Undermines Government's "National Security" Argument

" ... The administration's chief rationale for dismissing the suit 'no longer exists' ... "

Lawyer tells Court CIA Memos Undermine Case
Bob Egelko, SF Chronicle Staff Writer
April 21, 2009

Foreign prisoners who accused a Bay Area company of arranging torture flights for the CIA told a federal appeals court Tuesday that the Obama administration's disclosure of memos on brutal CIA interrogations undermined its claim that their lawsuit would endanger national secrets.

The administration's chief rationale for dismissing the suit "no longer exists, because the (interrogation) methods are now public, and because they have been prohibited," Ben Wizner, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer representing five current and former U.S. prisoners, said in a filing with the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

The five men accuse Jeppesen Dataplan, a San Jose subsidiary of the Boeing Co., of colluding with the CIA in their kidnapping and torture in a practice known as extraordinary rendition. ...

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