Justice Dept Silent on IG Role in State Secrets Cases
The Department of Justice told Congress recently that it would not disclose the number of state secrets cases involving alleged government misconduct, if any, that have been referred to an Inspector General for investigation.
Under a revised state secrets policy that was announced by Attorney General Holder in 2009, the Department committed to referring credible claims of government wrongdoing that could not be adjudicated in court because the state secrets privilege had been invoked to the Inspector General of the relevant agency for further investigation.
So have any such state secrets cases in fact been referred an Inspector General? That question was posed for the record by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse following a November 2011 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In newly published responses to this and a wide range of other questions that were transmitted to Congress in June, the Justice Department said it would not answer directly.
“The Department’s policy is not to disclose the existence of pending IG investigations. Consistent with that policy, we could not provide the number of cases, if any, that may have been referred to an IG pursuant to the Department policy on state secrets privilege.”
“However, to the extent IG investigations are undertaken, the Government has typically released public versions of final IG reports,” the DoJ reply stated.
No such public versions of final IG reports have been released in the Obama Administration, as far as could be determined. In 2008, a redacted version of a DHS Inspector General report concerning the Maher Arar state secrets case was released.
The good news is that even when the mercury climbs, heat illness, injury, and death are preventable. The bad news is that over the past five months, the Trump administration has dismantled essential preventative capabilities.
As the former U.S. Chief Data Scientist, I know first-hand how valuable and vulnerable our nation’s federal data assets are. Like many things in life, we’ve been taking our data for granted and will miss it terribly when it’s gone.
The Federation of American Scientists supports H.Res. 446, which would recognize July 3rd through July 10th as “National Extreme Heat Awareness Week”.
The Federation of American Scientists supports H.R. 3738 of the 119th Congress, titled the “Heat Management Assistance Grant Act of 2025.”