White House Mum on Legislation that Would Roll Back Bush “State Secrets Privilege”

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from Greg Sargent at The Plum Line: http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/president-obama/white-house-mum-on-legislation-that-would-nix-bush-state-secrets-privilege/


THE White House is declining to say whether the Obama administration will support legislation introduced by Senate Democrats that would roll back the use of the “state secrets privilege,” one of Bush’s most controversial legal tools.

The White House’s silence on the bill will give more fodder to critics who charge that Obama has broken a campaign promise to dramatically scale back use of the Bush legal maneuver and wants the latitude to use it himself. It also sets up a potential showdown with Senate Dems who continue to view the legislation as crucial to rolling back Bush-era abuses.

Making this particularly dicey, the original co-sponsors of the bill when it was first introduced in 2008 included then-Senators Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, now both top members of Obama’s administration.

The legislation — which represented the consensus view of the Democratic Party a year ago — would drastically limit use of the state secrets privilege, which is the invocation of national security to justify government secrecy and get anti-government lawsuits tossed out of court. The bill was reintroduced this year by Senators Russ Feingold, Patrick Leahy, and Ted Kennedy in response to Obama’s use of the legal tool, with Feingold calling the need for the legislation “urgent.”


read: http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/president-obama/white-house-mum-on-legislation-that-would-nix-bush-state-secrets-privilege/

[pleah]

1. It will be very interesting to see if Clinton and Biden will support it now.

Very interesting.

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3. yep

(not holding breath)

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2. The president gets to admit to crimes, and then block investigation by invoking

state secrets privilege? This is an end run around the congress's checks on executive power and needs legislation to clarify limits of privilege.

Openness in all government proceedings should be the strict rule, with public oversight checks on all and any exceptions.

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4. The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder reports

. . . like Sargent, he was "stonewalled" when trying to find out if the White House supports the State Secrets Act (in addition to Sargent, last week I also prodded a New York Times reporter to try to get an answer from the White House on this, and was told then, too, that they refuse to say what Obama's views are).

Ambinder, however, notes that his "reporting leads to believe that senior administration officials, including the White House counsel, Gregory Craig, oppose the current version of the legislation" and concludes: "Make no mistake: Obama will be rolling back the spirit, if not the fact, of a campaign promise by opposing this bill." Those are pretty strong words from one of the best friends the Obama White House has in the press corps.


http://politics.theatlantic.com/2009/04/obamas_coming_clash_with_congress_on_state_secrets.php