Biden's Legacy: Enhancing The 'State Secrets Privilege' To Protect The National Security State
Editor's Note: The following is the second in a series of articles on President Joe Biden's legacy when it comes to press freedom, whistleblowing, and government secrecy. The series began in November and will be published from now until January.
Abu Zubaydah, a high-profile detainee at Guantanamo Bay, was tortured by the CIA. He attempted to subpoena James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, both architects of the agency’s torture program who interrogated him at a black site in Poland. However, the CIA invoked the “state secrets privilege” to block Zubaydah from seeking testimony that could be used in a Polish criminal investigation.
The case involving the state secrets privilege was eventually heard by the United States Supreme Court, and the court not only ruled in favor of the CIA but also expanded the privilege. On March 3, 2022, the court issued a 7-2 opinion that declared that U.S. “national security” interests would be harmed if the case proceeded—despite acknowledging that some of the information sought was already public.
Although it was President Donald Trump’s Justice Department (DOJ) that initially defended the CIA, President Joe Biden was in the White House when the Supreme Court issued this precedent-setting decision. In October 2021, Biden DOJ lawyers went before the Supreme Court to argue that the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals had erred when it determined that the state secrets privilege did not cover all of the information sought by Zubaydah.
The Zubaydah case was emblematic of the Biden administration’s approach to several lawsuits in which individuals or organizations attempted to challenge abuses of power or hold security agencies accountable.
Read the full article here.
*For the first article in The Dissenter's series on "Biden's Legacy," go here.
The judge ruling for a security state has no sense of American history and would feel perfectly at home with some dictator monarch or underling.
“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when
the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.” Jonathan
Elliot, The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of
the Federal Constitution, as Recommended by the General Convention at
Philadelphia in 1787, at 169–70 (ed. 1881) (statement of Patrick Henry).
No reason for concealing from the American people the information relied upon by us to hold them accountable.
Biden is a demented war criminal. Before that he was a Zio Pig , credit card U.S. AIPAC bought D (the R's are owned by AIPAC Too). Free Palestine and Free the USA from AIPAC/Israeli/Traitors. Traitors are...Shut them down. truth rules. Help wanted.