SCOTUS Blocks Gitmo Detainee, No CIA “Black Site” Subpoena Allowed

SCOTUS Blocks Gitmo Detainee, No CIA

(StraightNews.org) – Officials arrested Abu Zubaydah in 2002 for his suspected involvement with al-Qaeda and the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Supreme Court recently considered his request for information about former CIA contractors who detained him at a “black site” in Europe for several years, but denied his request on March 3. Zubaydah wanted information about the agents who developed the programs like waterboarding and sleep deprivation, designed to break prisoners and make them talk.

The SCOTUS decided such information would compromise national security and ruled against the Guantanamo Bay detainee’s request for CIA testimony.

The ruling granted the federal government permission to keep black sites secret, but not all the justices agreed. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote a dissent stating the government was simply trying to save itself from an embarrassing past, and there were no “state secrets” left in this case. Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor agreed with his opinion.

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote the court’s official opinion, which made clear the judges were not ruling about his alleged terrorist activities or governmental treatment thereafter.

Six out of the nine SCOTUS justices ruled to throw out Zubaydah’s request. Although a few believe most secrets from that time are declassified and open to the public, most still assert some information is better left classified.

Copyright 2022, StraightNews.org