A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that former prisoners of the CIA could not sue over their alleged torture in overseas prisons because such a lawsuit might expose secret government information. The sharply divided ruling was a major victory for the Obama administration's efforts to advance a sweeping view of executive secrecy powers. It strengthens the White House's hand as it has pushed an array of assertive counter-terrorism policies, while raising an opportunity for the Supreme Court to rule for the first time in decades on the scope of the president's power to restrict litigation that could reveal state secrets. By a 6-to-5 vote, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed a lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a Boeing subsidiary accused of arranging flights to transfer captives to other countries for imprisonment and interrogation for the CIA. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the case on behalf of five former prisoners who say they were tortured in captivity -- and that Jeppesen was complicit in that alleged abuse. Judge Raymond C. Fisher described the case, which reversed an earlier decision, as presenting 'a painful conflict between human rights and national security.' But, he said, the majority had 'reluctantly' concluded that the lawsuit represented 'a rare case' in which the government's need to protect state secrets trumped the plaintiffs' need to have a day in court. While the alleged abuses occurred during the Bush administration, the ruling added a chapter to the Obama administration's aggressive national security policies. Its counterterrorism programs have in some ways departed from the expectations of change fostered by President Barack Obama's campaign rhetoric, which was often sharply critical of former President George W. Bush's approach. The ACLU vowed to appeal the Jeppesen Dataplan case to the Supreme Court, which would present the Roberts court with a fresh opportunity to weigh in on a high-profile test of the scope and limits of presidential power in counter-terrorism matters. It has been more than 50 years since the Supreme Court issued a major ruling on the state-secrets privilege, a judicially created doctrine that the government has increasingly used to win dismissals of lawsuits related to national security, shielding its actions from judicial review. The current case turns on whether the executive can invoke the state-secrets privilege to shut down entire lawsuits, or whether that power should be limited to withholding particular pieces of sensitive information. In April 2009, a three-judge panel on the Ninth Circuit adopted the narrower view, ruling that the lawsuit as a whole should proceed. But the Obama administration appealed to the full San Francisco-based appeals court. A group of 11 of its judges re-heard the case, and a narrow majority endorsed the broader view of executive secrecy powers. 'This case requires us to address the difficult balance the state secrets doctrine strikes between fundamental principles of our liberty, including justice, transparency, accountability and national security,' Fisher wrote. 'Although as judges we strive to honor all of these principles, there are times when exceptional circumstances create an irreconcilable conflict between them.' 