Challenges brew over 'state secrets'

Challenges brew over 'state secrets'

WASHINGTON - In federal courts and on Capitol Hill, challenges are brewing to a key legal strategy President Bush is using to protect a secret surveillance program that monitors phone calls and e-mails inside the United States.
Under grilling from lawmakers and attack by lawsuits alleging Bush authorized the illegal wiretapping of Americans, the White House has invoked a legal defense known as the "state secrets" doctrine — a claim that the president has inherent and unchecked power to shield national security information from disclosure, either to plaintiffs in court or to congressional overseers.

The principle was established a half-century ago when, ruling in a wrongful-death case brought by the widows of civilians killed in a military plane crash, the Supreme Court upheld the Air Force's refusal to provide an accident report to the plaintiffs. The government contended releasing the document would compromise information about a secret mission and intelligence equipment.

Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee, believes the White House has gone too far in invoking state secrets to halt civil lawsuits.

"We have the authority to define the state secrets doctrine," Specter says. "I don't think that the simple assertion of state secrets ought to be the end of the matter."

Specter, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., and others are working on legislation that would direct federal judges to review the president's state secrets claims and allow cases with merit to go forward.

http://www.blacklistednews.com/view.asp?ID=4869

Wow, that only took seven years.

is only useful if you have a complicit court and a complicit congress. That's what we have so far and is why our government is broken, checks and balances are broken, and the two party system is broken.