In March of this year, the Supreme Court decided to block the testimony sought by Guantánamo detainee Abu Zubaydah. Zubaydah, allegedly a former associate of Osama Bin Laden, claimed that he was subject to unlawful torture at a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) blacksite located in Poland. His lawyers wanted the testimony of two former CIA contractors, which would provide more information about the conditions of Zubaydah's detainment; however, the Supreme Court ruled that their testimony would divulge classified state secrets, upholding the Biden administration's assertion of the state secrets privilege. [1] CNN Supreme Court analyst Steve Vladeck said that this ruling "will make it much harder, going forward, for victims of government misconduct that occurs in secret to obtain evidence helping to prove that the conduct was unlawful." [2] Indeed, by blocking the disclosure of the testimony, the Supreme Court sustained a dangerous trend in post-9/11 national security law: the Executive's overly broad assertion of the state secrets privilege to dismiss suits that could implicate the U.S. government in misconduct. [3]

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