Federal Court: CIA Free to Break Law, Including Torture

A man is picked up and falsely accused of being a terrorist, then allowed to be tortured. And he has no recourse? That's what the U.S. court system is saying:

The danger that state secrets could be revealed outweighs a German man's claims that the CIA tortured him in an Afghan prison, a federal appeals court ruled Friday in refusing to reinstate his lawsuit.

The case centers on the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" program, in which terrorism suspects are captured and taken to foreign countries for interrogation. Human rights groups have heavily criticized the program.

The three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court's dismissal of Khaled el-Masri's lawsuit against former CIA director George Tenet and others.

Is anyone safe in Bush's America?