Appeals court puts CIA case on hold
WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court has put a lawsuit against the CIA on hold temporarily, disagreeing with a lower court judge who asserted the agency was hiding behind dubious national security arguments to shield itself from potential embarrassment.
The decision by a federal appeals panel on Thursday to grant an emergency stay will probably put off the questioning of a key witness in the case. The CIA has argued that allowing the case to proceed would divulge classified information.
Last week, US District Judge Royce Lamberth rejected a similar request to put the case on hold. In an opinion made public yesterday, Lamberth said there was no good reason to delay.
In the suit, a former Drug Enforcement Administration agent asserts that the CIA illegally wiretapped his home when stationed in Yangon, Myanmar in 1993. The agent, Richard Horn, said he became suspicious when he returned from a trip to find his government-issued rectangular coffee table had been replaced with a round one.
The case has been a test of the Obama administration’s use of the so-called state secrets privilege, when the government seeks to block legal action by saying the details that would be revealed would harm national security.
Administration officials have pledged to review all state secrets claims made by the previous Bush administration, but in many cases the government is still asserting the need to prevent disclosures that it says would harm national security.
