Procedures for Invoking the State Secrets Privilege
A newly disclosed U.S. Army memorandum (pdf) from 2001 describes the procedures that the Department of Defense must follow to invoke the state secrets privilege, from identifying the information at issue to preparing the required declarations to support the claim of privilege.
“These guidelines are intended to provide an instructive road-map for addressing the common procedural and substantive requirements associated with an invocation of the state secrets privilege,” the memorandum states.
See “Practical Guidelines for Invoking the State Secrets Privilege,” U.S. Army Memorandum for File, April 24, 2001.
The three page memorandum was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the James Madison Project. “The document offers some insight into a process that was otherwise completely secretive,” said attorney Mark S. Zaid, director of the Project.
To increase the real and perceived benefit of research funding, funding agencies should develop challenge goals for their extramural research programs focused on the impact portion of their mission.
Without trusted mechanisms to ensure privacy while enabling secure data access, essential R&D stalls, educational innovation stalls, and U.S. global competitiveness suffers.
Satellite imagery has long served as a tool for observing on-the-ground activity worldwide, and offers especially valuable insights into the operation, development, and physical features related to nuclear technology.
This year’s Red Sky Summit was an opportunity to further consider what the role of fire tech can and should be – and how public policy can support its development, scaling, and application.