PVS
...and above the people:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0503030247mar03,1,1855645.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=3&cset=true
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Bush wielding secrecy privilege to end suits
National security cited against challenges to anti-terror tactics
By Andrew Zajac
Washington Bureau
Published March 3, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is aggressively wielding a rarely used executive power known as the state secrets privilege in an attempt to squash hard-hitting court challenges to its anti-terrorism campaign.
How the White House is using this privilege, not a law but a series of legal precedents built on national security, disturbs some civil libertarians and open-government advocates because of its sweeping power. Judges almost never challenge the government's assertion of the privilege, and it can be fatal to a plaintiff's case.
The government is invoking the privilege in an attempt to wipe out the heart of a lawsuit that seeks to examine rendition, the secretive and controversial practice of sending terror suspects to foreign countries where they might be tortured.
Use of the secrets privilege also could eliminate a suit by a former FBI contract linguist who charges that the bureau bungled translations of terrorism intelligence before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The Bush administration is also using the secrets privilege to seek dismissal of a third case not related directly to terrorism. And the administration has invoked the privilege in less sweeping ways on several other occasions.
The use of the state secrets privilege, critics say, is part of President Bush's forceful expansion of presidential secrecy, including a more restrictive approach to releasing documents under the Freedom of Information Act; limitations on the dissemination of presidential papers and curtailment of information on individuals rounded up in the war on terrorism.
Justice Department spokesman Kevin Madden declined to discuss any active cases. But he said, "The state secrets privilege is only after a careful determination that, were a secret disclosed, it would adversely affect national security."
The secrets privilege is an especially powerful weapon because federal judges, reluctant to challenge the executive branch on national security, almost never refuse the government's claim to confidentiality.
That is true even though a growing body of declassified documents suggests that in the past, at least, the privilege has been used to protect presidential power, not national secrets, according to Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at the George Washington University, which works to expand public access to government documents.
There's even fresh evidence that the case leading to the Supreme Court's Reynolds decision, which enshrined the secrets privilege more than 50 years ago, may have been based more on concealing negligence than preserving national security.
In claiming the state secrets privilege, "the government always overreaches," Blanton said. "It always misleads and in some cases it lies, because it believes its authority is at stake."
That's not so, said Shannen Coffin, who oversaw state secrets litigation at the Justice Department from January 2002 until mid-2004.
"I don't think that's even a remotely plausible claim," said Coffin, now in private practice. "It's an extremely important privilege and one the government takes extremely seriously."
The Justice Department does not tally the government's use of the privilege. But according to a recent study, the U.S. has successfully asserted the secrets privilege at least 60 times since the early 1950s, and has been stymied only five times.
No court access
Unlike criminal prosecutions, where the law allows the disclosure of at least some secret information--for example, by allowing lawyers to view it in a restricted setting such as a judge's chambers--the secrets privilege keeps information completely out of court in civil cases.
More striking than the number of cases is the breadth of some recent demands for secrecy, say lawyers familiar with government secrets litigation.
For example, it would erase most of Maher Arar's suit over his seizure by U.S. officials in New York in 2002.
Arar, a Canadian citizen who was born in Syria, said he was shackled and flown to Jordan and then Syria where he was abused and imprisoned for 10 months.
His case is aimed at laying bare the arrangements between governments that underpin renditions, said David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University and one of Arar's lawyers.
If the government succeeds "in invoking state secrets, they will make renditions immune from legal challenge in court," Cole said.
Even attorneys fighting secrets claims acknowledge that the government needs to keep some information under wraps. But they argue that the demands for secrecy have gotten out of hand.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0503030247mar03,1,1855645.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=3&cset=true
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bush wielding secrecy privilege to end suits
National security cited against challenges to anti-terror tactics
By Andrew Zajac
Washington Bureau
Published March 3, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is aggressively wielding a rarely used executive power known as the state secrets privilege in an attempt to squash hard-hitting court challenges to its anti-terrorism campaign.
How the White House is using this privilege, not a law but a series of legal precedents built on national security, disturbs some civil libertarians and open-government advocates because of its sweeping power. Judges almost never challenge the government's assertion of the privilege, and it can be fatal to a plaintiff's case.
The government is invoking the privilege in an attempt to wipe out the heart of a lawsuit that seeks to examine rendition, the secretive and controversial practice of sending terror suspects to foreign countries where they might be tortured.
Use of the secrets privilege also could eliminate a suit by a former FBI contract linguist who charges that the bureau bungled translations of terrorism intelligence before and after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The Bush administration is also using the secrets privilege to seek dismissal of a third case not related directly to terrorism. And the administration has invoked the privilege in less sweeping ways on several other occasions.
The use of the state secrets privilege, critics say, is part of President Bush's forceful expansion of presidential secrecy, including a more restrictive approach to releasing documents under the Freedom of Information Act; limitations on the dissemination of presidential papers and curtailment of information on individuals rounded up in the war on terrorism.
Justice Department spokesman Kevin Madden declined to discuss any active cases. But he said, "The state secrets privilege is only after a careful determination that, were a secret disclosed, it would adversely affect national security."
The secrets privilege is an especially powerful weapon because federal judges, reluctant to challenge the executive branch on national security, almost never refuse the government's claim to confidentiality.
That is true even though a growing body of declassified documents suggests that in the past, at least, the privilege has been used to protect presidential power, not national secrets, according to Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at the George Washington University, which works to expand public access to government documents.
There's even fresh evidence that the case leading to the Supreme Court's Reynolds decision, which enshrined the secrets privilege more than 50 years ago, may have been based more on concealing negligence than preserving national security.
In claiming the state secrets privilege, "the government always overreaches," Blanton said. "It always misleads and in some cases it lies, because it believes its authority is at stake."
That's not so, said Shannen Coffin, who oversaw state secrets litigation at the Justice Department from January 2002 until mid-2004.
"I don't think that's even a remotely plausible claim," said Coffin, now in private practice. "It's an extremely important privilege and one the government takes extremely seriously."
The Justice Department does not tally the government's use of the privilege. But according to a recent study, the U.S. has successfully asserted the secrets privilege at least 60 times since the early 1950s, and has been stymied only five times.
No court access
Unlike criminal prosecutions, where the law allows the disclosure of at least some secret information--for example, by allowing lawyers to view it in a restricted setting such as a judge's chambers--the secrets privilege keeps information completely out of court in civil cases.
More striking than the number of cases is the breadth of some recent demands for secrecy, say lawyers familiar with government secrets litigation.
For example, it would erase most of Maher Arar's suit over his seizure by U.S. officials in New York in 2002.
Arar, a Canadian citizen who was born in Syria, said he was shackled and flown to Jordan and then Syria where he was abused and imprisoned for 10 months.
His case is aimed at laying bare the arrangements between governments that underpin renditions, said David Cole, a professor at Georgetown University and one of Arar's lawyers.
If the government succeeds "in invoking state secrets, they will make renditions immune from legal challenge in court," Cole said.
Even attorneys fighting secrets claims acknowledge that the government needs to keep some information under wraps. But they argue that the demands for secrecy have gotten out of hand.
cry
...but i promise i will inform you promptly should i ever begin to care
