Lots of media coverage today of a UK High Court ruling against release of US-originating papers held by the British Government which might show evidence of torture of a British resident in US custody.

As usual when legal matters are reported, it is not easy to work out precisely what point of legal principle was at issue. The Telegraph account is the best:

In their ruling, the British judges disclosed that the secret documents “gave rise to an arguable case of torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”. They also disclosed that British intelligence officials were present when Mr Mohamed alleges he was tortured.

That last sentence is badly written. Were they present when he was tortured (he says) or merely when he made the claim that he had been? In any case, the documents (say the judges) do not reveal any maltreatment. They only give rise to an arguable case, by no means the same thing.

The Judges piled it on:

… in the light of the long history of the common law and democracy which we share with the United States, it was, in our view, very difficult to conceive that a democratically elected and accountable government could possibly have any rational objection to placing into the public domain such a summary of what its own officials reported as to how a detainee was treated by them and which made no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters.

But the UK Government argued that to release these US papers would diminish the USA’s willingness to share with us key intelligence information, which would put the UK public at risk.

The inevitable ponderous rumble from the Guardian:

Future historians should perhaps turn to court rulings, rather than parliamentary debates or political speeches, to discover how government worked in the opening years of the 21st century. At their best, they expose the shallowness of public promises and the compromises made necessary by power.

Yesterday’s high court ruling … reveals that the foreign secretary faced something approaching international blackmail last year, when the United States threatened to cut off intelligence cooperation if Britain published secret information that showed a terror suspect had been tortured.

"In the darkness of secrecy, sinister interest and evil in every shape have full swing," wrote Jeremy Bentham.

Just a couple of facts worth bearing in mind.

We get a huge amount of national benefit from the intelligence relationship with the USA. Sometimes it comes with a price tag. That’s life.

When High Court judges and Guardian leader writers stroll down the Strand each morning en route to work, they might ponder that the fact they have made it that far in central London without being blown up by some or other political lunatic is in good part down to the secret hi-tech kit and cleverness – and associated toughness – which the USA and UK together use to head off said lunatics.

So J Bentham had a point. But it is only half a point. It is in that same darkness of secrecy that good people too have to fight against the powers of evil.

The Guardian might have attempted something sensible to say about its own words, "the compromises made necessary by power".

Not only by power. Also by responsibility?