A U.S. federal appeals court has ruled a lawsuit over the CIA’s secret prisons and use of torture cannot go forward because it would expose government state secrets. The German citizen Khalid El-Masri sued the CIA after he was kidnapped in Macedonia and flown to Afghanistan. El-Masri was held for five months in a secret prison where he says he was drugged, beaten and interrogated. Anthony Romero of the American Civil Liberties Union said, “With today’s ruling, the state secrets doctrine has become a shield that covers even the most blatant abuses of power.” Meanwhile, the German newspaper Der Spiegel is reporting that senior U.S. diplomats are pressuring German officials not to go ahead with a related case. German officials recently issued arrest warrants for 13 suspected CIA agents for their role in the kidnapping of El-Masri.