We were recently honored by the World Organization for Human Rights with its 2007 Pro Bono Service Award for the work of our team on a major case involving the use of "secret evidence" in cases against suspected terrorists. 

The case involved a US citizen, who, after finishing high school, went to school in Saudi Arabia. Following a series of bombings, he was jailed, along with scores of other students. There, he was tortured until he signed a confession written for him by others. The Saudi government later admitted that it had no real interest in holding him and was acting at the request of the US government. A long legal battle ensued in which the government sought to dismiss the petition based on secret evidence that it said it could not release even to the lawyers. When it seemed clear that the judge was going to require the disclosure of the secret evidence, the government did what it should have done all along—it asked the Saudis to release the US citizen and brought him back to the US to stand trial.

Arnold & Porter LLP's fight against the use of secret evidence to justify the imprisonment and torture of US citizens is in the best tradition of our firm. In fact, the fight against the use of secret evidence in national security cases is how our firm put itself on the map in the 1950s, when it was the only significant law firm to represent the victims of Joseph McCarthy and the "loyalty review boards" that ruined the careers of many loyal government employees. All three founders of the firm were so upset by the use of secret evidence that at one point the firm's lawyers were spending half of their time fighting these cases.

For a list of other recent cases, please download our latest Pro Bono Sampler.