Obama and the State Secrets Privilege

From President Obama's press conference last night:

[Michael Scherer of TIME]: Thank you, Mr. President. During the campaign, you criticized President Bush's use of the state secrets privilege, but U.S. attorneys have continued to argue the Bush position in three cases in court. How exactly does your view of state secrets differ from President Bush's? And do you believe presidents should be able to derail entire lawsuits about warrantless wiretapping or rendition if classified information is involved?

OBAMA: I actually think that the state secret doctrine should be modified. I think right now it's overbroad.

But keep in mind what happens, is we come in to 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 an overarching reform of that doctrine take? We've got to respond to the immediate case in front of us.

There -- 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.

This is encouraging to hear.  However, I have to take issue with his reasoning about why his administration continued Bush's policy.  The "We only had a week" excuse seems pretty flimsy to me.  Obama after all was a lawyer.  He knows perfectly well that the "State Secrets Privilege" does not actually appear anywhere in written US law.  It is a tool that was developed by the Executive Branch to keep information out of public sight.  Whenever you hear a politician or a government worker utter the words "national security interests" as a reason for not releasing information to the people you should immediately be suspicious. 

Obama's "Hope and Change" was not suppose to represent the continuation of Bush's nafarious and shadowy use of Black SItes, Extreme Rendition and the tools that helped keep those things secret.  So I am pleased with his statement last night, but I'll be even more pleased when Obama officially stops using the State Secrets Privilege altogether.

Posted by Matt at 4/30/2009 12:23 PM
Categories: Politics
Tags: Department of Justice Press Conference Obama Interrogation Torture Bush State Secrets State Secrets Privilege
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