Administration cites state secrets in bid to derail spy lawsuit

[sabra]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2006/05/12/state/n121546D74.DTL

Administration cites state secrets in bid to derail spy lawsuit


As lawmakers demand answers about warrantless electronic eavesdropping on Americans, the Bush administration says its secretive program's constitutionality cannot be challenged.

The government is taking that position in seeking the dismissal of a lawsuit filed in federal court here against AT&T Inc. over its alleged involvement in the surveillance program adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

The federal government is invoking the "state secrets privilege" in arguing that the lawsuit must be thrown out because it threatens to divulge information that is deemed critical to national security.

"The state secrets privilege permits the government to protect against the unauthorized disclosure in litigation of information that may harm national security interests," the Justice Department wrote to the judge presiding over the lawsuit filed by the San Francisco-based Internet privacy advocate Electronic Frontier Foundation.

[atreides1]

1. What Total BS

Where is this written in actual law? This sounds like a the Emperor is making up his own laws again.


on edit:

The State Secrets Privilege is a series of American legal precedents allowing the federal government the ability to dismiss legal cases that it claims would threaten foreign policy, military intelligence or national security.

Here is an one case,notice that after being declassified it was discovered that no threat to national security existed, just proof that the USAF sent the crew to their deaths in an aircraft
that wasn't maintained properly.

Main article: United States v. Reynolds
In United States v. Reynolds (1953), the widows of three crew members of a B-29 Superfortress bomber that had crashed in 1948 sought accident reports on the crash, but were told that to release such details would threaten national security by revealing the bomber's top-secret mission. The Supreme Court ruled that the executive branch could bar evidence from the court which they had deemed a threat to national security. In 2000, the accident reports in question were declassified and released, and were found to contain no secret information. They did, however, contain information about the poor state of condition of the aircraft itself, which would have been very compromising to the Air Force's case. Many commentators have alleged government misuse of secrecy in the landmark case.

[Kagemusha]

3. Well.. that's a long story actually.

It's a privilege created by the courts, not by any administration or by Congress, drawn out of English common law. (Note that this issue is arising in a CIVIL SUIT.) So basically it's a doctrine by which the courts do not attempt to intrude upon serious national security issues. However, there is an expectation that these issues be legitimate! Also, the judges are supposed to use sound judgment and not dismiss cases with an overly broad brush. Experience has shown that they tend to do exactly that. This doctrine was used during the Cold War rather extensively; now it is being applied to the War on Terror, on the grounds that whether or not Americans have been harmed by AT&T's actions, the nation is helped, and therefore, the case must be dismissed, no matter the injustice created by doing so.

We'll see what the judge thinks.

[rodeodance]

5. "The tactic, first recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in a McCarthy-era"

...The tactic, first recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in a McCarthy-era lawsuit, has been increasingly invoked by federal lawyers seeking to shield the government from scrutiny by the courts.

Legal experts say it usually prevails.

[fooj]

2. Bullshit.

We already know that, right?

[rodeodance]

4. "In almost every case, it terminates the lawsuit."

The tactic, first recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in a McCarthy-era lawsuit, has been increasingly invoked by federal lawyers seeking to shield the government from scrutiny by the courts.

Legal experts say it usually prevails.

"The state secrets privilege is sometimes called the 'nuclear option,'" said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists. "In almost every case, it terminates the lawsuit."

He suspects the San Francisco case will meet the same fate.

[henslee]

6. Uhh, err, yeahhh.... er... DOUBLE SECRET PROBATION, yeah thats

the ticket.