jmdrake
12-11-2010, 10:31 PM
http://madmikesamerica.com/2010/08/wikileaks-state-secrets-and-blood-on-our-hands/
WikiLeaks, State Secrets, and Blood on our Hands
by Krell on Aug 3, 2010
The “State Secrets” privilege is to prevent courts from revealing government state secrets in the course of civil litigation. The government may intervene in any civil suit, including when it is not a party to the litigation, to ask the court to exclude state secrets evidence.
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While the courts may examine such evidence closely, in practice they generally defer to the executive branch. Once the court has agreed that evidence is subject to the state secrets privilege, it is excluded from the litigation. Usually after the ruling the plaintiff cannot continue the suit without the privileged information, and drops the case.
Recently, courts have been more inclined to dismiss cases outright, if the subject matter of the case is a state secret.
The Governments “State Secrets” privilege was first officially recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States in the 1953 decision United States v. Reynolds when a military airplane, a B-29 Superfortress bomber, crashed. The widows of three civilian crew members sought accident reports on the crash but were told that to release such details would threaten national security by revealing the bomber’s top-secret mission.
The court held that only the government can claim or waive the “State Secrets” privilege, and it “is not to be lightly invoked”, and last there “must be a formal claim of privilege, lodged by the head of the department which has control over the matter, after actual personal consideration by that officer.
This ruling was the beginning of a long history of the government claiming “State Secrets” during court cases, effectively ending any kind of court jurisdiction in certain matters.
In 2000, the accident reports from that original 1953 “United States vs Brown” case were declassified and released. It was found that the assertion that they contained secret information was fraudulent. The reports did, however, contain information about the poor condition of the aircraft itself, which would have been very compromising to the Air Force’s case and supportive towards the widows getting compensation for wrongful deaths.
Some examples of “State Secrets” cases…
Sibel Edmonds
The privilege was invoked twice against Sibel Edmonds. The first invocation was to prevent her from testifying that the Federal Government had foreknowledge that Al-Qaeda intended to use airliners to attack the United States on September 11, 2001; the case was a $100 trillion action filed in 2002 by six hundred 9/11 victims’ families against officials of the Saudi government and prominent Saudi citizens. The second invocation was in an attempt to derail her personal lawsuit regarding her dismissal from the FBI, where she had worked as a post-9/11 translator and had been a whistleblower.
Center for Constitutional Rights et al. v. Bush et al.
On May 27, 2006 the Justice Department moved to preempt the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) challenge to warrantless domestic surveillance by invoking the state secrets privilege. The Bush Administration is arguing that CCR’s case could reveal secrets regarding U.S. national security, and thus the presiding judge must dismiss it without reviewing the evidence.
Khalid El-Masri
In May 2006, the illegal detention case of Khalid El-Masri was dismissed based on the privilege, which was invoked by the Central Intelligence Agency, alleged that he was falsely held by the CIA for several months (which the CIA acknowledges) and was beaten, drugged, and subjected to various other inhumane activity while in captivity.
He was ultimately released by the CIA with no charge ever being brought against him by the United States government. The U.S. District Court dismissed the case because, according to the court, the simple fact of holding proceedings would jeopardize state secrets, as claimed by the CIA.
On March 2, 2007, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed. On October 9, 2007, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the Fourth Circuit’s decision, letting the doctrine of state secrets privilege stand.
It’s is clear that the privilege of “State Secrets” will be invoked for political or legal advantage. The examples above are ample evidence and there are many more. There must be some method of holding the Government accountable for it’s actions. The nation’s press have long given up that responsibility, more interested in bottom line profits and keeping the doors open by reporting on the latest Lindsay Lohan escapade.
WikiLeaks and let’s shoot the messenger…
This is where I feel WikiLeaks performed a valuable function. They exposed the daily reports and facts of the war as it really is. They showed that the war wasn’t going exactly as planned, that civilian causalities were happening and being covered up. Exposing reports of the enemy having heat seeking missiles and possible collusion by the Pakistanis.
What is most maddening about the papers that WikiLeaks published is the Pentagon and the Obama Administration attack the messenger. Demanding that they stop printing the leaked papers and that they may have “Blood on their Hands”.
That to me has got to be the ultimate irony. Someone that prints a report and shows a video of a civilian attack, reports about several other civilian causalities, and they have blood on their hands? All those Iraqi dead from a trumped up war and WikiLeaks has blood on their hands?
In my opinion, that Nobel prize should be stripped from Obama and given to Julian Paul Assange, spokesperson and editor in chief of WikiLeaks. They have shown the light of truth on many issues around the world.
In accepting the Amnesty International Media Award 2009, Mr. Assange stated:
It is a reflection of the courage and strength of Kenyan civil society that this injustice was documented. Through the tremendous work of organizations such as the Oscar foundation, the KNHCR, Mars Group Kenya and others we had the primary support we needed to expose these murders to the world. I know that they will not rest, and we will not rest, until justice is done.
—“WikiLeaks wins Amnesty International 2009 Media Award for exposing Extra judicial killings in Kenya”
“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”
Galileo
WikiLeaks, State Secrets, and Blood on our Hands
by Krell on Aug 3, 2010
The “State Secrets” privilege is to prevent courts from revealing government state secrets in the course of civil litigation. The government may intervene in any civil suit, including when it is not a party to the litigation, to ask the court to exclude state secrets evidence.
SHARE THIS POST ShareThis
While the courts may examine such evidence closely, in practice they generally defer to the executive branch. Once the court has agreed that evidence is subject to the state secrets privilege, it is excluded from the litigation. Usually after the ruling the plaintiff cannot continue the suit without the privileged information, and drops the case.
Recently, courts have been more inclined to dismiss cases outright, if the subject matter of the case is a state secret.
The Governments “State Secrets” privilege was first officially recognized by the Supreme Court of the United States in the 1953 decision United States v. Reynolds when a military airplane, a B-29 Superfortress bomber, crashed. The widows of three civilian crew members sought accident reports on the crash but were told that to release such details would threaten national security by revealing the bomber’s top-secret mission.
The court held that only the government can claim or waive the “State Secrets” privilege, and it “is not to be lightly invoked”, and last there “must be a formal claim of privilege, lodged by the head of the department which has control over the matter, after actual personal consideration by that officer.
This ruling was the beginning of a long history of the government claiming “State Secrets” during court cases, effectively ending any kind of court jurisdiction in certain matters.
In 2000, the accident reports from that original 1953 “United States vs Brown” case were declassified and released. It was found that the assertion that they contained secret information was fraudulent. The reports did, however, contain information about the poor condition of the aircraft itself, which would have been very compromising to the Air Force’s case and supportive towards the widows getting compensation for wrongful deaths.
Some examples of “State Secrets” cases…
Sibel Edmonds
The privilege was invoked twice against Sibel Edmonds. The first invocation was to prevent her from testifying that the Federal Government had foreknowledge that Al-Qaeda intended to use airliners to attack the United States on September 11, 2001; the case was a $100 trillion action filed in 2002 by six hundred 9/11 victims’ families against officials of the Saudi government and prominent Saudi citizens. The second invocation was in an attempt to derail her personal lawsuit regarding her dismissal from the FBI, where she had worked as a post-9/11 translator and had been a whistleblower.
Center for Constitutional Rights et al. v. Bush et al.
On May 27, 2006 the Justice Department moved to preempt the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) challenge to warrantless domestic surveillance by invoking the state secrets privilege. The Bush Administration is arguing that CCR’s case could reveal secrets regarding U.S. national security, and thus the presiding judge must dismiss it without reviewing the evidence.
Khalid El-Masri
In May 2006, the illegal detention case of Khalid El-Masri was dismissed based on the privilege, which was invoked by the Central Intelligence Agency, alleged that he was falsely held by the CIA for several months (which the CIA acknowledges) and was beaten, drugged, and subjected to various other inhumane activity while in captivity.
He was ultimately released by the CIA with no charge ever being brought against him by the United States government. The U.S. District Court dismissed the case because, according to the court, the simple fact of holding proceedings would jeopardize state secrets, as claimed by the CIA.
On March 2, 2007, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed. On October 9, 2007, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the Fourth Circuit’s decision, letting the doctrine of state secrets privilege stand.
It’s is clear that the privilege of “State Secrets” will be invoked for political or legal advantage. The examples above are ample evidence and there are many more. There must be some method of holding the Government accountable for it’s actions. The nation’s press have long given up that responsibility, more interested in bottom line profits and keeping the doors open by reporting on the latest Lindsay Lohan escapade.
WikiLeaks and let’s shoot the messenger…
This is where I feel WikiLeaks performed a valuable function. They exposed the daily reports and facts of the war as it really is. They showed that the war wasn’t going exactly as planned, that civilian causalities were happening and being covered up. Exposing reports of the enemy having heat seeking missiles and possible collusion by the Pakistanis.
What is most maddening about the papers that WikiLeaks published is the Pentagon and the Obama Administration attack the messenger. Demanding that they stop printing the leaked papers and that they may have “Blood on their Hands”.
That to me has got to be the ultimate irony. Someone that prints a report and shows a video of a civilian attack, reports about several other civilian causalities, and they have blood on their hands? All those Iraqi dead from a trumped up war and WikiLeaks has blood on their hands?
In my opinion, that Nobel prize should be stripped from Obama and given to Julian Paul Assange, spokesperson and editor in chief of WikiLeaks. They have shown the light of truth on many issues around the world.
In accepting the Amnesty International Media Award 2009, Mr. Assange stated:
It is a reflection of the courage and strength of Kenyan civil society that this injustice was documented. Through the tremendous work of organizations such as the Oscar foundation, the KNHCR, Mars Group Kenya and others we had the primary support we needed to expose these murders to the world. I know that they will not rest, and we will not rest, until justice is done.
—“WikiLeaks wins Amnesty International 2009 Media Award for exposing Extra judicial killings in Kenya”
“All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.”
Galileo