When the government asserts the state secrets privilege in the course of litigation, the judiciary must independently evaluate the purported secret that is at issue and should not simply defer to the executive branch, several public interest groups argued in an amicus curiae brief (pdf) this week.
The brief, to which the FAS Project on Government Secrecy signed on, was filed in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in a state secrets case involving alleged domestic intelligence surveillance (Hepting v. USA, and related cases).
“The government’s extreme reading of the [state secrets] privilege would thwart government accountability, denying a forum for legitimate claims of government wrongdoing and undermining independent judicial review of executive action,” the brief stated.
The potential implication of these evidence gaps becomes more consequential when you look at how institutions actually make decisions day to day.
Every new institution inherits something – existing incentives, existing staff, decades of prior investment that shaped what’s possible.
This is not the first time Google has agreed to censor imagery at the behest of governments, but be warned: obfuscation at this broad level poses a direct threat to the public’s ability to monitor and scrutinize government operations.
America’s affordability problem is bigger than home prices and rents. The best housing policies make it easier to build homes, and recognize how housing connects to other domains.