The ACLU sues an American company for helping the war effort
Excerpt from Opinion Journal
Virtually every aspect of the administration’s war on terror-related policies–from the USA Patriot Act, to the use of military commissions to try captured al Qaeda members for war crimes, to the National Security Agency’s Terrorist Surveillance Program, so-called data mining, no-fly lists and related transportation security measures–has been challenged in court. On balance the courts have upheld the administration’s actions, or required relatively modest changes–or additional congressional action in the case of military commissions. Significantly, the Supreme Court has accepted the legality of the president’s adoption of a “laws of war paradigm.”
It is, therefore, not surprising that the war’s opponents have shifted tack. On May 30, 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a Boeing subsidiary specializing in air flight planning services, in the federal district court in northern California. The suit alleges that Jeppesen provided air flight services to the CIA as part of the agency’s “extraordinary rendition” program, through which the three plaintiffs–citizens of Ethiopia, Italy and Egypt–were supposedly transferred to Pakistani, Moroccan and Egyptian custody, where they were wrongfully imprisoned and abused, up to and including torture.
Assuming that the case is not thrown out because of the well-recognized “state secrets” privilege–as was a similar claim brought by Maher Arar, a Canadian rendered by the U.S. authorities to Syria–the ACLU’s complaint should quickly be dismissed for failing to state a legally cognizable claim. Jeppesen did not abuse the plaintiffs. It allegedly provided flight services, such as flight plans, ground service and weather reports, to the CIA agents who rendered the plaintiffs to foreign officials. There is nothing illegal about that, or about the practice of rendition itself. This is a longstanding practice whereby one country transfers a prisoner to another country regardless of whether they have a formal extradition treaty.
Leaving aside the lack of legal merit, the ACLU’s claims are part of a highly troubling new trend. They are of a piece with a number of other ATS lawsuits brought against government contractors, actions filed last year against telecommunications companies alleging that they violated federally protected privacy rights by cooperating with the NSA’s data-collection efforts, and an action, filed last March in Minnesota, against several airline passengers who had reported what they believed to be suspicious activity by a group of Muslim imams. The government enjoys legal immunities and other advantages in litigation that private citizens do not have. Moreover, for a private individual, a lawsuit, however meritless, can mean personal financial ruin and, at a minimum, significant disruption in his life. Corporations are similarly subject to costly and distracting litigation.
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Posted by JonJayRay on June 13, 2007 5:13 am
» Filed Under ACLU
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