Handling the truth

Opinion: September 18, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Handling the truth

Philadelphia Inquirer: President Obama’s pledge to make the government more open hasn’t kept the administration from blocking the truth about the harsh treatment of Bush-era terrorist suspects captured and interrogated overseas by CIA agents.

Unfortunately, a recent court victory appears to have strengthened Obama’s hand, allowing government secrecy to trump Americans’ right to know whether laws prohibiting inhumane treatment of prisoners were violated in their name.

A sharply divided panel of federal appeals judges in San Francisco last week tossed out a lawsuit by former CIA detainees who alleged torture in overseas jails, on grounds that the evidence presented at their trial might jeopardize national security.

During the administration of former President George W. Bush, Justice Department officials successfully fought off a dozen or more legal challenges over anti-terror tactics — including mass spying on citizens — by citing the so-called state secrets privilege.

Federal officials raise the suspicion that they are trying to cover up wrongdoing by hiding behind a claim of necessary secrecy.

The appeals-court majority acknowledged, at least, that the case presented “the difficult balance ... between fundamental principles of our liberty, including justice, transparency, accountability and national security.”

Given the sweeping anti-terrorism powers asserted by Bush and embraced by Obama, the federal courts must serve as a check and balance. That doesn’t mean judges should permit evidence to be revealed in a trial that would endanger national security or U.S. intelligence agents. At the same time, they shouldn’t bar the courthouse doors to credible challenges over anti-terror tactics.

In the case of the former detainees represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, a federal trial would have been the proper forum for a judge to decide whether the men could prove their case with evidence that wasn’t super-secret.

A year ago, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. directed that the secrets privilege be used only “in the narrowest way possible” to thwart legal challenges over government misconduct in fighting terrorism. Even so, Justice Department officials contend the secrecy claim was properly applied to the former CIA detainees’ case.

The ruling last week, though, slams the door on serious allegations that U.S. officials and their allies trampled the very freedoms that al-Qaeda seeks to destroy with its terror. Now it’s up to the Supreme Court to take this case on appeal, and to restore the courts’ rightful oversight role in such cases. That’s the only way citizens can be assured no one is above the law.