National security cited against challenges to anti-terror tactics
The Bush administration is aggressively
wielding a rarely used executive power known as the state secrets
privilege in an attempt to squash hard-hitting court challenges to its
anti-terrorism campaign. How the White House is using this privilege,
not a law but a series of legal precedents built on national security,
disturbs some civil libertarians and open-government advocates because
of its sweeping power. Judges almost never challenge the government's
assertion of the privilege, and it can be fatal to a plaintiff's case.
The government is invoking the privilege in an attempt to wipe out the
heart of a lawsuit that seeks to examine rendition, the secretive and
controversial practice of sending terror suspects to foreign countries
where they might be tortured. Use of the secrets privilege also could
eliminate a suit by a former FBI contract linguist who charges that the
bureau bungled translations of terrorism intelligence before and after
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. The Bush administration is also using the
secrets privilege to seek dismissal of a third case not related
directly to terrorism. And the administration has invoked the privilege
in less sweeping ways on several other occasions. The use of the state
secrets privilege, critics say, is part of President Bush's forceful
expansion of presidential secrecy, including a more restrictive
approach to releasing documents under the Freedom of Information Act;
limitations on the dissemination of presidential papers and curtailment
of information on individuals rounded up in the war on terrorism. [more]
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