John Dean: ACLU v. National Security Agency (State Secrets Privilege)

[cascadiance]

John Dean just writes a good piece on how ACLU's newest lawsuit against the NSA, along with a judge thought to be outside of the mold of Reggie Walton and other corrupt judges that allowed the administration to use the State Secrets Privilege as a "Get out of Court Free" card for too long. Sounds like if perhaps the issue of State Secrets privilege missuee can finally be dealt with, either it will force the SCOTUS to be shown for it's partisan, impeachable and complicit enabler of this administration if it tries to overturn such a judge's decision if she does finally rule against this privilege's use, or we can finally see cases like Sibel Edmonds' get into court like they deserve to be!

ACLU v. National Security Agency: Why the "State Secrets Privilege" Shouldn't Stop the Lawsuit Challenging Warrantless Telephone Surveillance of Americans
By JOHN W. DEAN
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Friday, Jun. 16, 2006

The American Civil Liberties Union is the lead plaintiff in a federal lawsuit requesting that the National Security Agency (NSA) be enjoined from its ongoing violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) via its program of telephone surveillance of Americans. Joining the ACLU as plaintiffs are a number of attorneys, scholars, journalists and others who have been adversely affected by the program. The plaintiffs argue that the NSA program violates not only FISA, but also the Constitution's First and Fourth Amendments.

The U.S. Government, through its Department of Justice attorneys, has been desperately trying to get this case - currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan -- dismissed. To this end, DOJ attorneys have invoked the "state secrets privilege" - claiming, in essence, that the government cannot explain its actions because they involve national security.

DOJ attorneys have used this strategy successfully with FBI translator Sibel Edmonds twice, to prevent her from testifying about misconduct in the FBI. They used it again with Maher Arar, a Canadian who was arrested when passing through JFK airport, returning from his vacation, only to find himself "renditioned" to Syria, where he was tortured before being released because he was innocent. And they used it once again with Khalid El-Masri, the German citizen mistakenly arrested and flow to Afghanistan where he was detained, beaten, and tortured by the CIA.

But this time, the outcome may be very different. Because this is a case where the "state secrets" privilege plainly should not apply, and a case with a judge brave enough to rule that, in fact, it does not.

Indeed, if she so chooses, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor can do for America what the GOP-controlled Congress, and Republican-beholden federal judges, have thus far refused to do: She can require the Administration to comply with the law -- and in the process, she can actually examine the validity of the government's claim of "state secrets," rather than merely buying into assertions that national security is involved. Since such claims have been persistently abused by prior presidents, this kind of examination is long overdue.
...

[salin]

1. Link to Article:

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20060616.html

I have been reading his articles for several years. Almost always worth printing up and passing along.