NYT: Supreme Court-Supreme Enabler Of Bush Admin's Efforts To Avoid Accountability

Editorial
Supreme Disgrace

Published: October 11, 2007

The Supreme Court exerts leadership over the nation’s justice system, not just through its rulings, but also by its choice of cases — the ones it agrees to hear and the ones it declines. On Tuesday, it led in exactly the wrong direction.

Somehow, the court could not muster the four votes needed to grant review in the case of an innocent German citizen of Lebanese descent who was kidnapped, detained and tortured in a secret overseas prison as part of the Bush administration’s morally, physically and legally abusive anti-terrorism program. The victim, Khaled el-Masri, was denied justice by lower federal courts, which dismissed his civil suit in a reflexive bow to a flimsy government claim that allowing the case to go forward would put national security secrets at risk.

Those rulings, Mr. Masri’s lawyers correctly argued, represented a major distortion of the state secrets doctrine, a rule created by the federal courts that was originally intended to shield specific evidence in a lawsuit filed against the government. It was never designed to dictate dismissal of an entire case before any evidence is produced.

..........

In refusing to consider Mr. Masri’s appeal, the Supreme Court has left an innocent person without any remedy for his wrongful imprisonment and torture. It has damaged America’s standing in the world and established the nation as Supreme Enabler of the Bush administration’s efforts to avoid accountability for its actions. These are not accomplishments to be proud of.

more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/11/opinion/11thu1.html?n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Editorials

they'll be guilted into anything.

That's what I'm hearing

That's EXACTLY what they're saying.

for "Worst Person in the Wooorrrllld".

might be wholly more appropriate.

Just another drop of rain flowing into a mighty ocean. I obviously hope you never get another 9/11 scale event but if you do then maybe consider that way back down the line something like this rain drop may have contributed to it.