Bush wielding secrecy privilege to end challenges to anti-terror tactics

Bush wielding secrecy privilege to end suits
National security cited against challenges to anti-terror tactics

By Andrew Zajac
Washington Bureau
Published March 3, 2005

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0503030247mar03,1,639407,print.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=2&cset=true

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is aggressively wielding a rarely used executive power known as the state secrets privilege in an attempt to squash hard-hitting court challenges to its anti-terrorism campaign.

How the White House is using this privilege, not a law but a series of legal precedents built on national security, disturbs some civil libertarians and open-government advocates because of its sweeping power. Judges almost never challenge the government's assertion of the privilege, and it can be fatal to a plaintiff's case.

The government is invoking the privilege in an attempt to wipe out the heart of a lawsuit that seeks to examine rendition, the secretive and controversial practice of sending terror suspects to foreign countries where they might be tortured.

Use of the secrets privilege also could eliminate a suit by a former FBI contract linguist who charges that the bureau bungled translations of terrorism intelligence before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Bush administration is also using the secrets privilege to seek dismissal of a third case not related directly to terrorism. And the administration has invoked the privilege in less sweeping ways on several other occasions.
..more..

and the present DOJ is pursuing the same avenue of cover up.

http://www.antiwar.com/blog/index.php?id=P1861

Still Trying to Silence Sibel

Sibel Edmonds, the heroic FBI contract translator - turned - whistle blower, despite the Department of Justice dropping their attempted application of the "state secrets privilege" to silence her last week, is now up against the same tactic with a different name.

According to John Files at the New York Times:

"The government has told a federal appeals court that a suit by an F.B.I. translator who was fired after accusing the bureau of ineptitude should not be allowed to proceed because it would cause 'significant damage to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.'

Lawyers for the government said in a brief filed with the court on Thursday that the suit could not continue without disclosing privileged and classified information."

This apparently means, "If we let her tell you what she knows, we might be in trouble."
Sibel Edmonds' Website
My interview of her (mp3)

Posted by: Scott Horton on Feb 26, 05 | 8:56 pm

--------
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/022605Y.shtml

Justice Dept. Opposes Bid to Revive Case against F.B.I.
By John Files
The New York Times

Saturday 26 February 2005

Washington - The government has told a federal appeals court that a suit by an F.B.I. translator who was fired after accusing the bureau of ineptitude should not be allowed to proceed because it would cause "significant damage to the national security and foreign policy of the United States."

Lawyers for the government said in a brief filed with the court on Thursday that the suit could not continue without disclosing privileged and classified information.

The translator, Sibel Edmonds, was a contract linguist for the bureau for about six months, translating material in Azerbaijani, Farsi and Turkish. Ms. Edmonds was dismissed in 2002 after complaining repeatedly that bureau linguists had produced slipshod and incomplete translations of important terrorism intelligence before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Ms. Edmonds also accused a fellow Turkish linguist in the Washington field office of blocking the translation of material involving acquaintances who had come under suspicion and said the bureau had allowed diplomatic sensitivities with other nations to affect the translation of important intelligence.

..more..

--------

you can silence anyone on the basis of national security.

I really don't see how Republicans can get away with calling themselves American patiots. They are the red scourage on America, just like it was foretold in Red Dawn.