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EJ

Published Letters: 486
Editor's Choice: 1

Sunday, July 15, 2007 10:05 AM

The Chesney paper

It is available at the link provided in the update: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=946676#PaperDownload (click on one of the icons, e.g, Chicago, to download the pdf). Here's what Steven Aftergood of FAS said at the link provided by obijuan below:

In a useful appendix to his paper, Prof. Chesney provides a tabulation of 89 opinions in which the state secrets privilege has been asserted since 1954. But these only include published opinions, a subset of the unknown total. And for technical reasons, he excludes some cases that have been previously cited as state secrets cases but includes others that have not been.

Fundamentally, he writes, "The reality is that we simply do not know, and have no way of finding out, just how frequently the privilege may have been asserted during any particular period."

After reviewing how the government has used privilege over the years, he concludes that "the pattern of implementation of the state secrets privilege does not depart significantly from its past usage."

Yet Prof. Chesney adds that "To say that the privilege has long been with us and has long been harsh is not to say, however, that it is desirable to continue with the status quo."

He considers the feasibility of enacting reforms to limit or modify the assertion of the privilege and finds reason to conclude that such reforms may be appropriate, particularly "where the legality of government conduct is itself in issue."

Sunday, July 15, 2007 12:35 PM

A "peer review"

Here's an amicus brief (for the appeal) filed by William G. Weaver and Robert M. Pallitto in support of Judge Walker's rejection of the administration's secrecy assertion in Hepting v. AT&T. Chesney had also submitted an amicus brief, which includes his state secrets paper as an addendum (http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/amicus_brief_chesney_03162007.pdf)

Small excerpt:

The tendency on the part of some to cut the privilege from its moorings is evident in the Chesney Brief urging reversal of the district court’s ruling on the privilege in the instant case. This brief, similar to positions often taken by the government, mythologizes and expands the power of Reynolds beyond its pragmatic banks....

In sum, the analysis proposed by the Chesney Brief misstates existing precedent and conflates distinct legal doctrines. There is no reason to replace or supplement the trial court’s analysis of state secrets precedent with professor Chesney’s analyses.

and

The Addendum to the Chesney Brief includes a problematic table of cases purporting to be “Published Opinions Adjudicating Assertions of the State Secrets Privilege after Reynolds, 1954-2006.”

Four of the ten cases included in the table before 1975 are not state secrets cases at all. United States v. Ahmad, 499 F. 2d 851 (3rd Cir. 1974); Black v. Sheraton, 371 F. Supp. 97 (D.D.C. 1974); Elson v. Bowen, 83 Nev. 515 (1967); Petrowicz v. Holland, 142 F. Supp. 369 (E.D. Pa. 1956). In none of those four cases did the government assert the privilege or apparently even bring up the privilege, and it can hardly be said that the courts involved “adjudicated” any matter concerning the privilege.

http://www.eff.org/legal/cases/att/weaveramicus.pdf

Friday, July 20, 2007 02:54 PM

More on today's Executive Order

Leonard Rubenstein, director of Physicians for Human Rights, said the executive order was inadequate. "What is needed now is repudiation of brutal and cruel interrogation methods. General statements like this are inadequate, particularly after years of evidence that torture was authorized at the highest levels and utilized by U.S. forces," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070720/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_terrorism

Marty Lederman @ Balkinization: The President has finally signed the Executive Order purportedly construing Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, as required by the Military Commissions Act (MCA). It is, in a word, worthless. Last month I surmised that the E.O. would be "very cryptic and uninformative, and that the public will not learn of what techniques our government is using and deeming not to be 'cruel treatment and torture.'"


Bingo....

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2007/07/cia-interrogation-executive-order-well.html

Sunday, July 22, 2007 11:51 AM

A victim of the Pentagon's "Surrogates Operation"

Poor, poor nabalzbbfr/anonymoose...

...This program seeks to bypass the mainstream press by working directly with a carefully culled list of military analysts, bloggers, and others who can be counted on to parrot the Bush Administration’s line on national security issues....

The Surrogates unit arranges regular conference calls during which senior Pentagon officials brief retired military officials, civilian defense and national security analysts, pundits, and bloggers. A few moderates are invited to take part, but the list of participants skews far, far to the right. The Pentagon essentially feeds participants the talking points, bullet points, and stories it wants told.

Ken Silverstein @ http://harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000587

nabalzbbfr/anonymoose's other predictions can be found here: http://www.defendamerica.mil/specials/2007/blog/

Tuesday, July 24, 2007 09:05 AM

Why do they bother?

Another example: Ken Silverstein wrote last week about a program at the Pentagon's Office of Public Affairs, in which mostly far-right bloggers and online journalists take part in conference calls with Pentagon officials about the war. It's run by a former junior assistant press secretary at the White and other political operatives. http://harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000587.

The administration is clearly as inept at winning over the public (see the Update) as it's been at running the war.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007 10:28 AM

I've noticed...

that the Bush Apologists (as Yoo did yesterday) tend go back into history to defend him and ignore more recent developments. For example, according to a recently updated CRS report, "Presidential Claims of Executive Privilege: History, Law, Practice and Recent Developments,"

As indicated in the above discussion, recent appellate court rulings cast considerable doubt on the broad claims of privilege posited by OLC in the past and now by the Clement Memo. Taken together, Espy [1997] and Judicial Watch [2004] arguably have effected important qualifications and restraints on the nature, scope and reach of the presidential communications privilege.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/secrecy/RL30319.pdf

Why didn't Yoo discuss these recent cases in his op-ed? I'd really like to hear what he has to say about them. I imagine I'll have to wait until the next Democratic president invokes executive privilege.

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