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Fight Government Secrecy and Reform the State Secrets Privilege

By richard

This week presents another opportunity to begin to curb ongoing abuse of government power.

For years, the state secrets privilege was a favorite tool of the Bush Administration. They used it to avoid accountability for both the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program and the CIA's "special rendition" program. The Justice Department has used the privilege to get lawsuits thrown out of court before they have even begun, based merely on the claim that letting courts judge the legality of those programs would endanger national security.

Recently, the Obama Administration has begun to use the same tactic -- most notably, to attempt to dismiss Jewel v. NSA, EFF's ongoing lawsuit against the NSA for warrantless wiretapping. Yet, even President Obama himself recently admitted that the state secrets privilege is "overbroad" and a "blunt instrument" that needs to be reformed.

In light of this continuing abuse, members of Congress have introduced bills to ensure meaningful judicial oversight of state secrets claims.

The Senate version of the bill (S. 417, the State Secrets Protection Act of 2009), sponsored by Senators Leahy, Specter, Feingold and Kennedy, will likely be facing a critical vote in the Senate Judiciary Committee any day now. Your support could be the deciding factor!

Check below to see if one of your Senators is on that committee. If they are, please stand up against overreaching government secrecy and send a message to your Senator today to voice your strong support for S. 417, the State Secrets Protection Act of 2009.

If you live in any of the following states, you will be able to send a message to a senator on the Senate Judiciary Committee:

Alabama Arizona California Delaware Illinois Iowa

Maryland Minnesota New York Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania

Rhode Island South Carolina Texas Utah Vermont Wisconsin

Take action now!

Full post as published by Electronic Freedom Foundation - Deep Links on May 05, 2009 (boomark / email).