Thu May 25, 2006 2:01am ET

[underpants]

This is in hopes that more people see this story which was filed/posted in the middle of the night.

Eugene's orginal LBN thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2305179&mesg_id=2305179

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The United States government, not any court, is the best judge of whether to keep programs such as its controversial effort to eavesdrop on citizens a secret, an assistant attorney general said on Wednesday.


Peter Keisler, an assistant attorney general, and other U.S. officials made the claim in the latest filing to a lawsuit alleging that telecommunications firm AT&T illegally allowed the government to monitor phone conversations and e-mail communications.

"In cases such as this one, where the national security of the United States is implicated, it is well established that the executive branch is best positioned to judge the potential effects of disclosure of sensitive information on the nation's security," they wrote in a filing on Wednesday evening.

"Indeed, the Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that courts are ill-equipped as an institution to judge harm to national security."