Q - What Is A State Secret in 2007?

A - factual statements that would embarrass the Bushies. Case in point: a certain Abdallah Higazy, the man coerced into "confessing" his "role" in 9/11 after a commercial flight-band transceiver was allegedly found in his NY hotel room. Days later, an airline pilot shows up at the same hotel and asks for his radio back. Oops. After 34 days and many threats later, now Higazi is innocent & free to go. Upset for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the FBI threatening to turn over his family in Egypt where they would have been tortured unless Higazi confessed, he proceeded to sue the hotel and the FBI agent for coercing his confession.

Fast forward to now - recently, a three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Mr.Higazy could proceed with his lawsuit. A blogger named Howard Bashman posted the ruling on his website How Appealing, Within hours he is ordered by the clerk of the Second Circuit to take down his link as the original posting contained "state secrets". Later the Second Circuit issues a redacted version of the opinion. Blogger Valtin at Daily Kos has done a really great job at creating a post that has many valuable links to all the facts, if you are interested in this you really need to read the post and follow the links. All I will do is provide a summary of the "state secret" that was redacted -

Higazy alleges that during the polygraph, Templeton told him that he should cooperate, [begin unredacted portion] and explained that if Higazy did not cooperate, the FBI would make his brother "live in scrutiny" and would "make sure that Egyptian security gives [his] family hell." Templeton later admitted that he knew how the Egyptian security forces operated: "that they had a security service, that their laws are different than ours, that they are probably allowed to do things in that country where they don’t advise people of their rights, they don’t – yeah, probably about torture, sure."

Higazy later said, "I knew that I couldn’t prove my innocence, and I knew that my family was in danger." He explained that "[t]he only thing that went through my head was oh, my God, I am screwed and my family’s in danger. If I say this device is mine, I’m screwed and my family is going to be safe. If I say this device is not mine, I’m screwed and my family’s in danger. And Agent Templeton made it quite clear that cooperate had to mean saying something else other than this device is not mine".

If you're interested, you really need to check out the links above. We live in scary times these days, a constitution and bill of rights that are literally just "pieces of parchment". I thought conservative republicans always respected "rule of law" and other quaint notions. Again - oops