WASHINGTON — In a victory for the Bush administration and its use of the "state secrets" defense, the Supreme Court refused Tuesday to hear a lawsuit from a German car salesman who said he was wrongly abducted, imprisoned and tortured by the CIA in a case of mistaken identity.
The court's action, taken without comment, was a setback for civil libertarians who had hoped to win limits on the secrecy rule, a legacy of the Cold War.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the so-called state secrecy privilege has been invoked regularly to bar judges or juries from hearing claims of those who say they were beaten, abused or spied upon by the government during its war on terrorism. Administration lawyers have argued successfully that hearing such claims in open court would reveal national security secrets.
Civil libertarians said Tuesday that the government was using the secrecy defense to cover up its own wrongdoing. They also said the broad use of this rule was doing further damage to the nation's image, already sullied by international condemnation of its "extraordinary rendition" program of arresting terrorism suspects and transporting them to foreign countries for interrogation.
"In a nation committed to the rule of law, the government's unlawful activity should be exposed, not hidden behind a state secrets designation," said Steven R. Shapiro, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union, which had urged the high court to hear the case of Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent.
The White House said it had no comment on the court's decision. Though the Bush administration has not publicly acknowledged El-Masri's account, the German government has said that the U.S. admitted it made a mistake.
The Supreme Court dismissed El-Masri's appeal in a one-line order but may consider the state secrets rule in a future terrorism case. The justices are due next month to hear a challenge to the administration's continuing detention of several hundred men at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They also are likely to act in the months ahead on other appeals that raise the secrecy rule in cases challenging the warrantless wiretapping of Americans.
The state secrets rule dates to 1953 with a case involving the crash of a B-29 bomber. When the widows of three crewmen sued and sought the official accident report, the Air Force refused, saying the plane was on a mission to test secret electronics equipment.
