The Barack Obama administration apparently surprised a panel of the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Feb. 9 by pressing ahead with an argument for preserving state secrets originally developed by the Bush administration in a case involving Guantánamo Bay. In the case, Binyam Mohamed and four other detainees filed suit against a Boeing subsidiary for arranging flights for the Bush administration's "extraordinary rendition" program. The Bush administration argued that the case should be dismissed because even discussing it in court could threaten national security.

Do you think he's planning something? From the NY Daily News, Feb. 4:

Former VP Dick Cheney warns of nuclear attack on United States under President Obama
WASHINGTON - Dick Cheney isn't finished scaring the bejesus out of America.

Six detainees from the Guantánamo Bay military prison, including three Uighurs, are seeking refugee status in Canada with the support of Canadian sponsors. The Uighurs were last year deemed not to be unlawful enemy combatants. Lawyers for the men have said that US authorities have admitted the men were mistakenly picked up, and are ideal candidates for refugee status in Canada. They also have said that the men will face torture or even death if they are allowed to return to China.

The US has threatened to withhold intelligence cooperation with the UK if evidence is made public of the torture of a British resident at Guantánamo Bay, Britain's High Court asserted in a ruling Feb. 4. Details in the case must remain secret, judges ruled—explicitly citing US threats. Lord Justice Thomas and Justice Lloyd Jones said lawyers for the Foreign Secretary David Miliband had told them that the threat by the US still applied under President Barack Obama's administration. While noting that failure to release the evidence is contrary to the rule of law, the judges said it must remain secret or "the public of the United Kingdom would be put at risk."

The UN's special torture rapporteur called on the administration of Barack Obama to prosecute former president George W. Bush and his defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld for torture and ill-treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay. "Judicially speaking, the United States has a clear obligation" to bring proceedings against Bush and Rumsfeld, Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak said in remarks to Germany's ZDF TV.

Pope Benedict Jan. 24 rehabilitated a breakaway "traditionalist" bishop who denies the Holocaust—ignoring warnings from Jewish leaders that it would seriously harm relations with the Catholic church and foment anti-Semitism. The Vatican said the pope issued a decree lifting the 1988 excommunication of four traditionalist bishops for being ordained by the late "traditionalist" Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre without Vatican consent. The four bishops lead the ultra-conservative Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX), which has about 600,000 members and rejected modernizations of Roman Catholic worship and doctrine. The Vatican said the excommunications were lifted after the bishops affirmed their acceptance of Church doctrine and papal authority.

Fox News is having a field day with reports that a Saudi man who was released from Guantánamo Bay after a six-year stint has joined al-Qaeda's branch in Yemen and is now said to be the terror network's number-two in the country. The announcement, made this week on an Islamist militant website, comes as President Barack Obama ordered the detention facility closed within a year.

Saying that "our ideals give us the strength and moral high ground" to fight terrorism, President Barack Obama signed executive orders Jan. 22 ending the CIA's secret overseas prisons, banning coercive interrogation methods, and closing the Guantánamo Bay detention camp within a year.