March 3, 2022
OPEN SOURCE EVERYTHING:
The Supreme Court hands the CIA a victory in a horrid case about torture (Ian Millhiser, Mar 3, 2022, Vox)
There's no reasonable doubt that Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, a Palestinian man who is often referred to as "Abu Zubaydah," was held by the Central Intelligence Agency at a black site in Poland. Nor is there reasonable doubt that he was tortured at this black site.Nevertheless, the Supreme Court held on Thursday, in United States v. Husayn AKA Zubaydah, that these widely reported facts are "state secrets," and that the US government may refuse to confirm or deny them.The upshot of the Zubaydah decision is that the Court prioritized somewhat vague concerns about national security -- that foreign governments might lose faith in the United States if the US government reveals "secret" programs that aren't really secret -- over getting to the bottom of a gross human rights violation.
Americans support torturing jihadis: there is no risk to the state in revealing any of this.
Posted by Orrin Judd at March 3, 2022 2:53 PM