{"id":17340,"date":"2022-06-10T13:16:13","date_gmt":"2022-06-10T17:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=17340"},"modified":"2022-06-10T13:16:13","modified_gmt":"2022-06-10T17:16:13","slug":"supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Tortures the Constitution Again"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n
\n

Supreme Court Tortures the Constitution Again<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

by James Bovard<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/header>\n

The Supreme Court ruled in March that Americans have no right to learn the grisly details of CIA torture because the CIA has never formally confessed its crimes. The case symbolizes how the rule of law has become little more than legal mumbo-jumbo to shroud official crimes.<\/strong> And it is another grim reminder that Americans cannot rely on politically approved lawyers wearing bat suits to save their freedoms<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

In 2002, the CIA captured Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian radical, in Pakistan and falsely believed he was a kingpin with al Qaeda. The CIA tortured him for years in Thailand and Poland. As Justice Neal Gorsuch noted, the CIA \u201cwaterboarded Zubaydah at least 80 times, simulated live burials in coffins for hundreds of hours,\u201d and brutalized him to keep him awake for six days in a row. The CIA has admitted some of the details of the torture, and Zubaydah\u2019s name was mentioned more than a thousand times in a 683-page Senate report released in 2014 on the CIA torture regime. But the Supreme Court permitted the CIA to pretend that the case is still secret.<\/p>\n

The holy relic of \u201cstate secrets\u201d<\/b><\/h2>\n

This case turned on the invocation of a holy bureaucratic relic of dubious origin \u2014 \u201cstate secrets.\u201d As the court\u2019s 6\u20133 ruling, written by Justice Stephen Breyer, noted, \u201cTo assert the [state secrets] privilege, the Government must submit to the court a \u2018formal claim of privilege, lodged by the head of the department which has control over the matter.\u2019\u201d This is akin to permitting the Wizard of Oz to rotely certify that his curtain must remain closed for the good of all the munchkins in Oz. After a federal agency announces that it is entitled to secrecy, the court \u201cshould exercise its traditional \u201creluctance to intrude upon the authority of the Executive in military and national security affairs,\u201d Breyer wrote. Breyer neglected to explain how self-government can be reconciled with near-total secrecy of an elected government\u2019s foreign and military policie<\/strong>s.<\/p>\n

The court upheld a \u201cstate secrets\u201d claim to block Zubaydah\u2019s lawyers from serving subpoenas on the psychologist masterminds of the CIA torture program to learn the details of his interrogation in Poland. The court\u2019s ruling also blocks Polish investigators seeking information about the crimes committed at a CIA torture site in their nation.<\/p>\n

This case illustrated the fantasy world that permeates official Washington, D.C., controversies. In 2019, federal Judge Richard Paez rejected the CIA\u2019s privilege claim because \u201cin order to be a \u2018state secret,\u2019 a fact must first be a \u2018secret.\u2019\u201d Even the president of Poland admitted that crimes were committed at that CIA torture site in his country.<\/p>\n

But the Supreme Court disregarded common sense, ruling that \u201csometimes information that has entered the public domain may nonetheless fall within the scope of the state secrets privilege.\u201d According to the Supreme Court, \u201ctruth\u201d depends solely on what federal officials have publicly confessed.<\/strong> ACLU attorney Dror Ladin groused, \u201cU.S. courts are the only place in the world where everyone must pretend not to know basic facts about the CIA\u2019s torture program.\u201d<\/p>\n

It gets worse. Then-CIA chief Mike Pompeo asserted that exposing details of torture in Poland could hinder foreign spy agencies\u2019 partnerships with the CIA. The court upheld \u201cstate secrets\u201d to aid the CIA in \u201cmaintaining the trust upon which those relationships [between spy agencies] are based.\u201d The court warned, \u201cTo confirm publicly the existence of a CIA [torture] site in Country A, can diminish the extent to which the intelligence services of Countries A, B, C, D, etc., will prove willing to cooperate with our own.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court acted as if it was merely smoothing the path for a Girl Scout troop to sell cookies at a shopping center instead of shrouding a \u201ccrime against humanity\u201d (the United Nations\u2019 verdict on torture). Pompeo<\/strong> bluntly described the CIA modus operandi: \u201cWe lied, we cheated, we stole. It\u2019s like we had entire training courses.\u201d The CIA\u2019s long record of lawless assassinations did nothing to deter the deference it received from the court. Instead, the \u201cmutual trust\u201d between conniving spy agencies is more important than the trust that Americans should have in their own government.<\/p>\n

State secrets and the war on terror<\/b><\/h2>\n

In his decision, Justice Breyer stressed, \u201cObviously, the Court condones neither terrorism nor torture, but in this case we are required to decide only a narrow evidentiary dispute.\u201d But the Supreme Court necessarily condones any crime it helps cover up. The court\u2019s sweeping rulings on state secrets and sovereign immunity have provided a get-out-of-jail-free card for Bush-era torturers and torture policymakers. No victim of Bush-era torture has received justice in federal courts.<\/strong><\/p>\n

State-secrets claims multiplied after the start of the war on terror.<\/strong> The Bush administration routinely invoked state secrets to seek \u201cblanket dismissal of every case challenging the constitutionality of specific, ongoing government programs,\u201d according to a study by the Constitution Project. In 2007, federal judge Harry Pregerson groused that the \u201cbottom line here is the government declares something is a state secret, that\u2019s the end of it. The king can do no wrong.\u201d In 2009, a federal appeals court slammed the Obama administration\u2019s use of state secrets: \u201cAccording to the government\u2019s theory, the judiciary should effectively cordon off all secret government actions from judicial scrutiny, immunizing the CIA and its partners from the demands and the limits of the law.\u201d The Obama administration invoked the state-secrets doctrine to justify refusing to disclose the standards it used to place Americans and others on the assassination list of suspected terrorists.<\/p>\n

As author Barry Siegel noted, in the vast majority of cases where state secrets are invoked, \u201cjudges rule blindly, without looking at the disputed documents underlying the State Secrets claims.\u2026 They choose, instead, to trust the government \u2014 the ultimate act of faith.\u201d Eventually, instead of a good excuse for breaking the law, all that is necessary is to claim that an excuse exists, even if the excuse is secret.<\/p>\n

The origin of state secrets<\/b><\/h2>\n

Gorsuch noted that the Supreme Court created the doctrine in a 1953 case in which the Pentagon claimed \u201cstate secrets\u201d to cover up the details of an Air Force crash. Half a century later, the government declassified the official report of the crash. It contained no national-security secrets but instead detailed how gross negligence had caused the crash (which killed three people). Yet the Supreme Court clearly has no shame about being conned by the Pentagon and other federal agencies.<\/p>\n

State secrets is akin to a fraudulent religious miracle that was not exposed until after it became canonized.<\/strong> During oral arguments at the court last November, Chief Justice John Roberts talked as if the state-secrets doctrine was on a moral and legal par with habeas corpus, which was specifically mentioned in the original Constitution even prior to the Bill of Rights. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a former Bush administration lawyer, whooped up the state-secrets doctrine as \u201cfoundational to the national security of the country.\u201d Gorsuch, on the other hand, observed that \u201cit seems that the government wants this suit dismissed because it hopes to impede the Polish criminal investigation and avoid (or at least delay) further embarrassment for past misdeeds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gorsuch, whose dissent was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor (the most liberal member of the court), warned that granting \u201cutmost deference\u201d to the CIA would \u201cinvite more claims of secrecy in more doubtful circumstances \u2014 and facilitate the loss of liberty and due process history shows very often follows.\u201d Law professor Steve Vladeck said the \u201cruling will make it much harder, going forward, for victims of government misconduct that occurs in secret to obtain evidence helping to prove that the conduct was unlawful.\u201d A confidential report in February revealed that the CIA is vacuuming up masses of personal information from American citizens, probably in violation of federal law. But don\u2019t expect to learn the tawdry details or the names of victims because of the state-secrets doctrine.<\/p>\n

The first sentence of the Associated Press<\/i> report on the ruling perfectly summarized the decision: \u201cThe Supreme Court sided with the government.\u201d Swallowing state-secrets claims vivifies how the Supreme Court has become the guardian of Leviathan Democracy. Federal agencies are creating trillions of pages of new secrets each year. The majority of Supreme Court justices have no problem with federal agencies systematically blindfolding American citizens to the actions of the federal government.<\/p>\n

When Justice Breyer, who wrote the court decision, announced his impending retirement, the media gushed over his long record of pragmatism at the high court. William James, the system\u2019s philosophical godfather, declared that pragmatism means \u201cthat ideas become true just in so far as they help us to get into satisfactory relations with other parts of our experience.\u201d James explained that \u201cany idea upon which we can ride \u2026 is true instrumentally.\u201d Breyer was popular with places like the Washington Post<\/i> because of his endless deference to federal agencies on cases involving the Fourth Amendment (prohibiting unreasonable searches) and other issues. In D.C., covering up torture is pragmatic because it permits all three branches of the government to con the American people into believing that their rulers are on a leash. The most celebrated pragmatists in recent Washington history have all been \u201cuseful idiots for Leviathan.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bipartisan support for state secrets<\/b><\/h2>\n

Some Washington pundits had expected that Biden\u2019s election would result in a revival in civil liberties after the purported Trump reign of darkness. But even before the state-secrets case, the Biden administration urged a court to dismiss a lawsuit brought by an American citizen who claimed he had been tortured in Egypt, because the alleged torturer had diplomatic immunity because he works for the International Monetary Fund. (Previously, the IMF was only permitted to torture economies.)<\/p>\n

Biden\u2019s embrace of the state-secrets doctrine is tricky to reconcile with his other rhetoric. In his inaugural address last year, Biden proclaimed, \u201cEach of us has a duty and a responsibility as citizens, as Americans and especially as leaders \u2026 to defend the truth and defeat the lies.\u201d In a speech last year to Congress, Biden declared, \u201cAmerica is rising anew, choosing \u2026 truth over lies.\u201d Last December, Biden issued an executive order to \u201crebuild trust in government.\u201d<\/p>\n

But why should anyone trust a government that refuses to admit crimes about which the entire world knows?<\/strong> The same legal arguments used to shroud Bush-era torture will be used in coming years to cloak abuses by the Biden administration and future presidents. The state-secrets doctrine presumes \u201cgovernment knows best, and no one else is entitled to know.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state-secrets doctrine provides a license for federal agencies to lie to their victims and to federal judges.<\/strong> In 2005, a Stanford University graduate student, Rahinah Ibrahim, went to San Francisco International Airport to catch a flight to Hawaii. Instead, she was handcuffed and locked up overnight because her name was on the No Fly list. She was eventually permitted to fly to her home country, Malaysia, but was prohibited from returning to the United States. She sued to discover why she was blacklisted, launching an eight-year battle that entailed more than $3 million in legal costs.<\/p>\n

Attorney General Eric Holder warned that \u201cdisclosure that an individual is not a subject of an FBI counterterrorism investigation could likewise reasonably be expected to cause significant harm to national security.\u201d Holder also swore that the feds were not invoking \u201cstate secrets\u201d to conceal \u201cadministrative error\u201d or to \u201cprevent embarrassment.\u201d In 2014, federal judge William Alsup obliterated the official storyline when he disclosed that Ibrahim had been banned from flying simply because an FBI agent in 2004 \u201cchecked the wrong box\u201d on a terrorism investigation form. The feds carried out a nine-year cover-up to preserve Americans\u2019 blind faith in FBI paperwork.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the Supreme Court swallowed the state-secrets claim in the Polish torture case, it effectively acceded to state secrets in one of the most appalling FBI abuses of the war on terror. Beginning in 2006, the FBI sent Craig Monteilh, a former Drug Enforcement Administration informant, into mosques in southern California to gather evidence against Muslims at worship. His FBI handlers gave Monteilh permission to sleep with Muslim women he targeted and to secretly tape record their pillow talk. He also placed a recording device to covertly tape Muslim therapy sessions. National Public Radio noted the surveillance \u201cyielded no results and proved a huge embarrassment to the bureau\u201d after Monteilh went public in 2012 to denounce his own behavior and the FBI. Monteilh encouraged mosque members to engage in bombing and other violence. He was part of an army of 15,000 FBI informants recruited after 9\/11 who fueled pervasive entrapment operations.<\/p>\n

When three members of the mosque filed a lawsuit against the FBI, the feds invoked \u201cstate secrets\u201d to torpedo their long-lasting case. The New York Times<\/i> aptly summarized the result in early March: \u201cSupreme Court Sides With F.B.I. in Case on Spying on Muslims.\u201d Justice Samuel Alito\u2019s opinion stressed that \u201cwe have never suggested that an assertion of the state secrets privilege can be defeated by showing that the evidence was unlawfully obtained.\u201d<\/p>\n

The state secrets doctrine has been an anti-Constitution scandal for at least 20 years. The feds\u2019 sway over damning information is boundless \u2014 at least until some scofflaw like Edward Snowden or Julian Assange or Daniel Hale obliterates federal credibility.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cNo free government can survive that is not based on the supremacy of the law\u201d is the motto chiseled above the entrance to the Justice Department headquarters. But \u201csupremacy of the law\u201d now means little more than the Supreme Court recycling legal mummeries to hide federal atrocities. How many official crimes can democracy survive? Unfortunately, the answer is a secret.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This article was originally published in the June 2022 edition of<\/em> Future of Freedom<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Supreme Court Tortures the Constitution Again by James Bovard The Supreme Court ruled in March that Americans have no right to learn the grisly details of CIA torture because the CIA has never formally confessed its crimes. The case symbolizes how the rule of law has become little more than legal mumbo-jumbo to shroud official […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1326,10,19,2869,1056,164,55,342,1047,3234,24,12,3235],"class_list":["post-17340","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-al-qaeda","tag-bush","tag-cheney","tag-daniel-hale","tag-julian-assange","tag-leviathan","tag-secrecy","tag-snowden","tag-state-secrets","tag-stephen-breyer","tag-supreme-court","tag-torture","tag-zubahdah"],"yoast_head":"\nSupreme Court Tortures the Constitution Again - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Supreme Court helps CIA cover up its torture atrocities. How many official crimes can democracy survive?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Supreme Court Tortures the Constitution Again - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Supreme Court helps CIA cover up its torture atrocities. How many official crimes can democracy survive?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-06-10T17:16:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/torture-supreme-court-combo-image-2560px-US_Supreme_Court.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"832\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@jimbovard\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"11 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/10\\\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/10\\\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jim\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\"},\"headline\":\"Supreme Court Tortures the Constitution Again\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-06-10T17:16:13+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/10\\\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":2304,\"commentCount\":4,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/10\\\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/03\\\/torture-supreme-court-combo-image-2560px-US_Supreme_Court.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Al-Qaeda\",\"Bush\",\"Cheney\",\"Daniel Hale\",\"Julian Assange\",\"leviathan\",\"Secrecy\",\"Snowden\",\"State Secrets\",\"Stephen Breyer\",\"Supreme Court\",\"Torture\",\"Zubahdah\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/10\\\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/10\\\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/10\\\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\\\/\",\"name\":\"Supreme Court Tortures the Constitution Again - James Bovard\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/10\\\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/10\\\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/03\\\/torture-supreme-court-combo-image-2560px-US_Supreme_Court.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-06-10T17:16:13+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\"},\"description\":\"Supreme Court helps CIA cover up its torture atrocities. How many official crimes can democracy survive?\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/10\\\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/10\\\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/10\\\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/03\\\/torture-supreme-court-combo-image-2560px-US_Supreme_Court.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2022\\\/03\\\/torture-supreme-court-combo-image-2560px-US_Supreme_Court.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":832},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2022\\\/06\\\/10\\\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Supreme Court Tortures the Constitution Again\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/\",\"name\":\"James Bovard\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\",\"name\":\"Jim\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"caption\":\"Jim\"},\"description\":\"Bovard's homepage is at http:\\\/\\\/www.jimbovard.com He can be contacted at jim@jimbovard.com James Bovard is the author of ten books. The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/www.jimbovard.com\",\"https:\\\/\\\/www.facebook.com\\\/jim.bovard\",\"https:\\\/\\\/x.com\\\/jimbovard\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/author\\\/admin\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Supreme Court Tortures the Constitution Again - James Bovard","description":"Supreme Court helps CIA cover up its torture atrocities. How many official crimes can democracy survive?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Supreme Court Tortures the Constitution Again - James Bovard","og_description":"Supreme Court helps CIA cover up its torture atrocities. How many official crimes can democracy survive?","og_url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/","og_site_name":"James Bovard","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","article_published_time":"2022-06-10T17:16:13+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":832,"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/torture-supreme-court-combo-image-2560px-US_Supreme_Court.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Jim","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@jimbovard","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jim","Est. reading time":"11 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/"},"author":{"name":"Jim","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f"},"headline":"Supreme Court Tortures the Constitution Again","datePublished":"2022-06-10T17:16:13+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/"},"wordCount":2304,"commentCount":4,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/torture-supreme-court-combo-image-2560px-US_Supreme_Court.jpg","keywords":["Al-Qaeda","Bush","Cheney","Daniel Hale","Julian Assange","leviathan","Secrecy","Snowden","State Secrets","Stephen Breyer","Supreme Court","Torture","Zubahdah"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/","name":"Supreme Court Tortures the Constitution Again - James Bovard","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/torture-supreme-court-combo-image-2560px-US_Supreme_Court.jpg","datePublished":"2022-06-10T17:16:13+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f"},"description":"Supreme Court helps CIA cover up its torture atrocities. How many official crimes can democracy survive?","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/torture-supreme-court-combo-image-2560px-US_Supreme_Court.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/torture-supreme-court-combo-image-2560px-US_Supreme_Court.jpg","width":1200,"height":832},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2022\/06\/10\/supreme-court-tortures-the-constitution-again\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Supreme Court Tortures the Constitution Again"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/","name":"James Bovard","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f","name":"Jim","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","caption":"Jim"},"description":"Bovard's homepage is at http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com He can be contacted at jim@jimbovard.com James Bovard is the author of ten books. The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17340","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17340"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17340\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17342,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17340\/revisions\/17342"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}