Supreme Court is Asked to Review State Secrets Case
Attorneys for Khaled El-Masri, who was allegedly subjected to “extraordinary rendition” by the Central Intelligence Agency, asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the dismissal of his lawsuit against the Agency last year on asserted “state secrets” grounds.
If the petition (pdf) is granted, the Court’s review has the potential to alter the judiciary’s handling of “state secrets” claims generally.
“The proliferation of cases in which the government has invoked the state secrets privilege, and the lack of guidance from this Court since its 1953 decision in Reynolds, have produced conflict and confusion among the lower courts regarding the proper scope and application of the privilege,” the petitioners argued. See Petition for Certiorari, May 30, 2007.
The government replied last week that the petition is an “extravagant request” to overturn “settled precedents” and should be rejected. See Government’s Opposition to Petition for Certiorari (pdf), September 2007.
The historical and legal background of the controversy over use of the state secrets privilege was examined most recently by legal scholar Louis Fisher in “The State Secrets Privilege: Relying on Reynolds,” Political Science Quarterly, Fall 2007 (subscription req’d).
A critical view of state secrets policy was presented by journalist Barry Siegel in “State-Secret Overreach,” Los Angeles Times, September 16.
“One thing became increasingly clear: AI doesn’t simply introduce a new category of risk. It changes the speed, scale, complexity, and interaction of risks that already exist.”
In an ideal world, we would not have state or federal climate intervention research bans. We would have researchers and institutions that would not shy away from revealing the good, the bad, and the ugly of these technologies and doing so responsibly.
“What excites me is that it’s very tempting to be very discouraged, and say, ‘Oh, we’ve got these archaic institutions that are calcified and you could never change them.’ But I think we’re in the middle of a technological revolution that will upend lots of things, and does provide a window.”
Ask people what worries them most right now, and they’ll say the cost of living and their livelihoods, not climate change. But those concerns are not separate.