A Boeing Co. unit was joined by the Obama administration in opposing reinstatement of a lawsuit claiming Jeppesen Dataplan falsified flight plans to disguise the CIA's delivery of suspected terrorists to secret prisons where they were tortured.

A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union Monday urged a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco to revive the case after it was dismissed last year by a lower court judge.

Under former President George W. Bush, the government argued national security would be jeopardized if the suit, filed in 2007, is allowed to proceed. The administration of President Barack Obama hasn't changed position on that issue, Douglas Letter, a Department of Justice attorney, told the judges.

"Today these lawyers were representing the current administration and unfortunately they took the position that the United States will continue to stand in the way of torture victims having their day in court," Ben Wizner, a lawyer for the ACLU, said after the court hearing.

The ACLU alleged that Arapahoe County-based Jeppesen helped transport terrorism suspects on more than 70 flights to countries where they weren't protected by U.S. law and were tortured during CIA interrogation.

Leon Panetta, Obama's pick to head the Central Intelligence Agency, said Thursday that the U.S. wouldn't send terrorist suspects to countries that might torture them or to secret prisons where they could be held indefinitely.

The ACLU's case relies in part on Sean Belcher, a former Jeppesen employee. In a 2007 court document, Belcher said a senior Jeppesen official, Bob Overby, told employees the company did "all the 'extraordinary rendition' flights" for the CIA. Belcher said the "torture flights" were profitable, according to the ACLU.