WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 — A German citizen who said he was kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency and tortured in a prison in Afghanistan lost his last chance to seek redress in court today when the Supreme Court declined to consider his case.

The justices’ refusal to take the case of Khaled el-Masri let stand a March 2 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va. That court upheld a 2006 decision by a federal district judge, who dismissed Mr. Masri’s lawsuit on the grounds that trying the case could expose state secrets.

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In 2000 the Supreme Court so shamed itself and America by seating an unelected George Bush in the Oval Office, that it refused to sign the decision.

Again today the court has turned its back on American standards of decency and fairness, this time not even daring to hear the case. Thus the court has reduced itself to mere bookends of a failed and false administration.

There is no reason any court cannot hear matters of national security 'in camera.' Because of that, the traitorous Bush administration charge of security issues too sensitive to allow is a bald-faced lie that subverts the very nation it purports to defend.

This is a disastrous decision by a weak court. Chief Justice Roberts owes his nation better treatment than perfidy.

Of what use is a secure nation that has lost its conscience? Is there a man or woman who would stand and say "I give you my freedoms to keep me safe," or is that merely the wail of children afraid of something under the bed?

For me, I will not give an inch. If someone bombs the Starbucks in which I sit, sipping latte, it will have been worth the unfettered freedom to sit there.

* For more in-depth articles by Jim on Terrorism, check out Opinion-Columns.com