CIA and FBI win blackout on rendition claims
Intelligence services in the US have won a legal ruling to allow them to withhold evidence about suspected British involvement in the arrest and torture of terror suspects from MPs in the UK, it was reported. - A judge in Washington DC has allowed the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency to use a loophole to keep information from MPs that might include information about the complicity of UK authorities in extraordinary rendition. Under US freedom of information laws, the release of documents to anyone representing a foreign government can be blocked. According to the Independent, the CIA won the ruling after the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition made a number of requests for information while members investigated the UK's knowledge of torture against terror suspects. Tony Lloyd, vice-chairman of the cross-party group, told the newspaper the judgment was "disappointing" and had been sought to avoid embarrassment.