September 10, 2010 2:10PM # Obama Administration Wins in State Secrets Case By [David Rittgers](https://www.cato.org/people/david-rittgers) --- SHARE A split panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals [decided](http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2010/09/08/08-15693.pdf), on a 6–5 vote, that a lawsuit filed by extraordinary rendition and torture victims is [barred](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/us/09secrets.html?_r=1&hp) by the State Secrets Privilege. Over a year ago, a three-judge panel [ruled](../../../../../state-secrets-case-proceeds/) that the case should proceed with traditional application of the Privilege — individual pieces of evidence would be excluded based on their secret nature, but other evidence would remain available for litigation. Robert Chesney has some [thoughtful commentary](http://www.lawfareblog.com/2010/09/reacting-to-andrew-sullivan-reacting-to-the-state-secrets-ruling-distinguishing-rule-of-law-and-individual-justice-concerns/) on how the current state of the law deals with rule of law versus individual justice concerns. By any measure this is, as Glenn Greenwald [notes](http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/09/08/obama/index.html), a broad victory for the government and [further evidence](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/opinion/09thurs2.html?hp) of continuity between the Bush and Obama administrations’ approaches to terrorism. ##### Related Tags [Defense and Foreign Policy](https://www.cato.org/defense-foreign-policy), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).