Mixed News on Wiretapping from 9th Circuit US Court

abb3w writes "The bad news: the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has ruled (pdf) that the Al-Haramain lawyers may not submit into evidence their recollections of the top secret document handed to them detailing the warrantless electronic scrutiny they received. 'Once properly invoked and judicially blessed, the state secrets privilege is not a half-way proposition.' The good news: they have declined to answer and directed the lower court to consider whether 'FISA preempts the common law state secrets privilege' with respect to the underlying nature of the program itself ... which also keeps alive hopes for the EFF and ACLU to make those responsible answer for their actions."

Comments

Re:Big Brother is my friend.

[vague_ascetic]

A rather vehement strain of the meme:

"But BillJeff did it first"

which again provides anecdotal evidence that two wrongs do indeed make a righty.

Another lesson that has been finally ground into America's consciousness by the last seven years of governmental overreach is one that has been preached to us for over twenty since, since the Reagancomedy:

Republicans do it better the Democrats

This has now been demonstrably proven to be true in the instances of

• putrescent pure pro partisan politiking
• boot-stomping Natural Liberty
• using sodomy as an interrogatory methodology
• peeping in the public pottys
• defaming the rectitude of honourable humans who possessed the temerity to rise in dissent
• promulgation of revisionist ideations to the extent of the exectuive power, which seems to acquire an ability to exist without the strictures of the U.S Constitution whenever a Republican has ascended to the Presidency
• deficit spending; as it is well known that Democrats Tax and spend; yet that is a far far better practise than to just spend without end, while heavily dampening down the flow of funding coming into the government.
• elevating a personal version (Per.Version) of the Creative Force to a position of dominance over the civil government

These are but a few of the many examples of what happens with Conservatism Gone Wild. Yet you seem to be admitting an instance where the Republicans are no better than the Democrats here, and that is when it comes to defending liberty.

So what is the purpose of you ravening spew? Are you claiming that The Democrats Are The Lamer of Two Evils? Given my near seven year experience with the tyranny of GW Bush, I've grown nostalgic for a lamer of evils.

Re:Never Been Comfortable

[corsec67]

Or, even if it is "State Secrets", why can't it be used in the trial anyways?

Are people just accepting of the fact that "State Secrets" also means "immune from opposition"?

Option F

[Harmonious Botch]

Refusing to permit information into the court denies the plaintif due process. So let's admit any state secret, with the understanding that someone has to do time for it's release to the world. If the plaintif loses the case, then he goes to a criminal trial for having forced the state to reveal secrets. If the defendant loses, then he goes on trial.

So when a secret is revealed, someone does time for it. This would compel all government bureaucrats who aree in charge of secret projects to make sure that those projects do not get out of hand.