Earlier this week, the U.S. Court of Appeals rebuffed the Justice Department's assertion of the state secrets doctrine in an effort to dismiss a lawsuit against a company that allegedly facilitated the CIA's extraordinary rendition of several individuals. The decision in Mohamed et al v Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. is here.
Last night, President Obama indicated an intention to revisit the state secrets doctrine and narrow is application. In response to a question at his press conference, Obama said:
I actually think that the state secret doctrine should be modified. I think right how it’s over-broad. But keep in mind what happens is, we come into office, we’re in for a week — and suddenly we’ve got a court filing that’s coming up. And so we don’t have the time to effectively think through what, exactly, should a overarching reform of that doctrine take. We’ve got to respond to the immediate case in front of us.Interestingly enough, the President's comments echo Orin's assessment from February. Stay tuned.I think it is appropriate to say that there are going to be cases in which national security interests are genuinely at stake, and that you can’t litigate without revealing covert activities or classified information that would genuinely compromise our safety. But searching for ways to redact, to carve out certain cases, to see what can be done so that a judge in chambers can review information without it being in open court — you know, there should be some additional tools so that it’s not such a blunt instrument. And we’re interested in pursuing that. I know that Eric Holder and Greg Craig, my White House Counsel, and others are working on that as we speak.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Obama Administration Continues to Defend State Secrets:
- Obama Administration to Revise State Secrets Doctrine:
Keep moving the goalposts ...
If I'm correct, then Obama is not required to declare a sweeping policy change or favor legislation that limits the privilege. All he has to do is direct his appointee to assert the privilege or not.
He has no incentive to give up a pretty powerful executive tool. He'd be a fool to do so.
It is more than a little foolish to trust anything Obama says that is not a previously vetted statement read off the Teleprompter of the United States (TOTUS) or issued officially in writing.
When on his own without TOTUS, Obama tends towards tap dancing to avoid displaying his ignorance on the subject, often incoherent CYA (see yesterday's town hall meeting where he peevishly wandered through a stream of thought responding to the Tea Party protest outside in the street), or simply sucking up to whatever crowd he happens to be in front of (see Obama guaranteeing to some woman that she would stay in her home).
The government position on the CIA interrogation issue has been a hash because of Obama extemporaneous statements in contradiction with the rest of his Administration.
In this latest statement, Obama is tap dancing to avoid displaying his ignorance by following his tried and true patter: "Um, sometimes you ought to do X; um, except when you shouldn;t do X; um, we are working on solving X; um, I inherited X from George Bush. That patter is Obama's extemporaneous position on any thorny issue.
What 150,000 jobs might those be? Maybe these are the jobs he claimed Caterpillar would add before they took an ax to their payroll.
I'm very uncomfortable with the idea of secret justice. I also think we can trust existing federal judges to rule on such claims.
Will the government appeal the Ninth Circuit decision? There is now a split with the Fourth.
And now that Judge Walker has brushed asided DOJ's contumacious response to his previous order in the Al-Haramain case, will DOJ begin to cooperate?
In the congressional arena, will Obama support legislation to curb the malignant growth of the state-secrets doctrine?
Time will tell.
Bart, you're always delightfully constructive in your comments, but isn't TOTUS taken already, as in Treasurer of the United States?
It may be a reference to the TOTUS blog.
That should provide a clue. He now has access to the information Bush had, and the responsibilities to protect the nation. I'm told that does wonders to focus the mind (unless you are Jimmy Carter, who has nothing to focus).
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