By Robert Pallitto, Foreign Policy in Focus
The U.S. government doesn’t want to acknowledge a Polish torture site that everyone knows about.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled recently on the government’s use of the state secrets doctrine in an opinion that will make it easier for intelligence agencies to evade accountability in future individual rights cases. In U.S. v. Zubaydah, government torture policy and state secrets converge. A torture victim requested information related to his treatment at a CIA “black site,” and the government blocked that request, citing national security interests. Seven members of the Court joined parts of an opinion siding with the government, with only Justices Sotomayor and Gorsuch dissenting. The case has implications for other torture-related cases and for government accountability more broadly as it expands state secrecy powers based on a doctrine that was already overbroad, and suspect in its origins.
America’s High-Tech Surveillance Could Track Abortion-Seekers, Too, Activists Warn
By Rebecca Chowdhury – Time
Alejandra Pablos leans into the camera, and her curly black hair frames her face. “We are going to hear about abortions,” she says to viewers watching via Instagram Live. Every Tuesday, Pablos hosts virtual Abortion Speak Outs.