Throughout, it has maintained a policy of denial, refusing to cooperate with the court on secrecy grounds.
Barack Obama told voters in 2008 that he opposed the government cult of secrecy, but once he became president, his Justice Department also argued that the case should be dismissed on secrecy grounds.
The A.C.L.U. filed what it acknowledged was a "mischievous" Freedom of Information Act request in an effort to force the government to acknowledge counterterrorism operations that it had refused to discuss on secrecy grounds and that were mentioned in the cables.
Indeed, some of the Obama administration's biggest legal victories have come in shielding Bush-era officials by getting lawsuits brought by victims with credible claims of kidnapping and torture thrown out of court on specious secrecy grounds, without any testimony being heard.
The convictions of officers working for Italy's then military intelligence agency, SISMI, who were also found to be culpable was overturned on state secrecy grounds.
Meanwhile, the high priests of the security state not only concealed their radical expansion of government surveillance from the public, but also affirmatively lied about it while ensuring that legal challenges were shut down on secrecy grounds.
