Why I am skeptical about Edward Snowden.

[dkf]

37. Well thanks to Snowden and the subsequent declassification we may move forward on this:

Spygate Leaks Imperil State-Secrets Defense

First it was the President George W. Bush administration and then the President Barack Obama administration, which for years have been arguing in court that the state-secrets privilege shields the government from lawsuits accusing it of siphoning Americans’ electronic communications to the National Security Agency without warrants.

But with the recent Spygate leaks, including one that all calling metadata of Verizon customers is being forwarded to the NSA, the government is hard-pressed to maintain that line with a straight face.

“By contrast, the recent disclosures have greatly undermined the factual and legal basis for the government defendants’ separate and distinct state secrets motion,” the Electronic Frontier Foundation wrote in a recent court filing.

The EFF’s lawsuit, which has had a tortured history through the courts, is based in part on allegations of internal AT&T documents, first published by Wired, that outline a secret room in an AT&T San Francisco office and others which allegedly route internet traffic to the NSA.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/06/state-secrets-imperiled/