Tag: US Supreme Court

Cross posted from The Stars Hollow Gazette

Now more than ever, the reason for Wikileaks to exist: the preservation of what remains of the rule of law and the US Constitution. From Marcy Wheeler at FDL:

SCOTUS: Govt Can Use State Secrets to Hide Crimes

SCOTUS just declined to take the Jeppesen Dataplan suit.

The high court rejected an appeal by five men who claimed that U.S. operatives-with support from Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a Boeing unit-abducted them and sent them to other countries where they were tortured. They alleged Jeppesen provided critical flight planning and logistical support to the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program. The men were seeking unspecified monetary damages from the company.

This effectively means that men like Binyam Mohamed, who the Brits have admitted was tortured after being rendered, cannot sue for redress. And the ruling is particularly egregious since a Jeppesen executive admitted that his company was flying rendition flights.

In effect, SCOTUS’ decision not to take this case leaves in place state secrets precedent that allows the government to commit grave crimes, but hide behind state secrets.

Update: The Brennan Center and a bunch of other crazy hippies who believe in rule of law wrote a letter in response to SCOTUS’ decision to DOJ reminding them that, per their purported state secrets policy, credible allegations of wrong-doing must be referred to the Inspectors General of the relevant agencies for investigation.

snip

This is me officially holding my breath for the Obama Administration to do what they promised on this front.

Don’t hold your breath, Marcy. I have no expectations of the Obama administrations doing anything they promised regarding the rule of law and the Constitution. Dick Cheney must be proud.

The Supreme Court of the United States of America will be issuing a ruling from the bench today regarding a 32 year old law that bans handguns in Washington, District of Columbia.  

Yesterday, John Roberts & the Supremes issued a ruling regarding Capitol Punishment where they found, once again by the magic number of 5 – 4, that Capitol Punishment was only to be used in cases of murder and not for cases of rape or rape of a child.

Of course, the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse (John Robert, Clarence Thomas, Vlad Scalia and Samuel Alito) all wanted to expand the ruling regarding Capitol Punishment but were held at bay by the more thoughtful members of the Supreme’s.

Much Wingnut gnashing of the teeth, pulling of the hair and wailing of the in-lockstep voice of the Right Wing could be seen and heard directly after this ruling.  

I must admit, I do get a slight kick out of watching and listening to the Right Wing extremists when they get told they can’t go forward and do what they want to do!  It’s like witnessing a mass group of 5 year olds being told they have to take a nap before they can eat their cupcakes!  Quite noisy and somehow hilarious!