state-secrets
Obama Issues Limits on ‘State Secrets Privilege’
The Obama administration announced new limits Wednesday on the so-called state secrets privilege used by the government to scuttle lawsuits that involve classified information, adding layers of oversight to a power that both the Bush and Obama administration has used to kill off lawsuits challenging anti-terrorism programs. Under the new guidelines (.pdf) issued by Attorney General Eric Holder, government lawyers will only invoke the privilege when there’s a possibility of “significant harm” to the country, and won’t use it to hide embarrassing or illegal government programs . The states secrets privilege lets the government tell a judge that a matter in a lawsuit, or the very subject of a lawsuit, is so sensitive that national security trumps justice. Asserting the privilege all but forces a judge to ban critical evidence or toss an entire case, no matter how egregious the government conduct might have been.
Continue reading »Warrantless surveillance lawsuit thrown out
Federal district judge Vaughn Walker has rejected lawsuits that aimed to hold telecommunications companies accountable for their role in a controversial warrantless surveillance program that was orchestrated in secret by the federal government. The Electronic Frontier Foundation and American Civil Liberties Union are preparing to appeal the dismissal. The warrantless surveillance program is one the more contentious controversies that still lingers from Bush’s tenure in office.
Continue reading »Legal Scholar: Obama Breaking Promise for Online Transparency
President Barack Obama is breaching a key campaign promise of government transparency, according to Jim Harper, the director of information studies at the Cato Institute. Harper, in his Monday paper, The Promise that Keeps on Breaking , notes that Obama, as part of his ethics plan , promised during the campaign to post legislation seeking his signature for five days online.
Continue reading »
