There are times when the security of the nation trumps the right to take the government to court. That is a long-standing legal doctrine -- one which, interestingly enough, the liberals would love to see overturned by the Supreme COourt despite their new-found love of stare decisis and insistence that the Roberts court leave in place the precedents that came before.

Thus they are displeased at the decision by the Supreme Court not to hear a case of a foreign national allegedly taken into custody by American intelligence officials in another country and taken to a third country for interrogation without ever setting foot in America.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday terminated a lawsuit from a man who claims he was abducted and tortured by the CIA, effectively endorsing Bush administration arguments that state secrets would be revealed if the case were allowed to proceed.

Khaled el-Masri, 44, alleged that he was kidnapped by CIA agents in Europe and held in an Afghan prison for four months in a case of mistaken identity.

The administration has not publicly acknowledged that el-Masri was detained, and lower courts dismissed his suit after the administration asserted that state secrets would be revealed if the lawsuit were not blocked. The justices rejected his appeal without comment.

As I mentioned, liberals are apoplectic over the decision to respect precedent, though at least one lefty commentator is glad that the Supreme Court didn't take the case.

The only silver lining to this, I suppose, is that given the current composition of the Supreme Court it might be all for the best to keep it out of their hands. For all we know, they could have ended up expanding the government's power just as easily as they could have decided to limit it. For now, maybe we're better off with the status quo.

Oh, one minor detail -- the state secrets privilege grows out of a case decided by a Supreme Court composed entirely of FDR and Truman appointees. One would have thought that the Democrats would like that pedigree. But I guess not, at least not while George W. Bush is able to use it.

Posted by: Greg at 11:14 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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