Reform of secrecy laws?

[meldroc]

One thing that's really been disturbing me about the way our laws are set up, is the way the state secrecy priviledge is being abused as a backdoor to the Constitution. Several lawsuits challenging the legality of the NSA's warrantless wiretaps have been arbitrarily dismissed because "forcing the state to provide evidence in this case would jeopardize national security."

How do we address this? I have one idea. Not a perfect idea, but better than just flat out dismissing perfectly valid lawsuits.

We create a new federal court in this country specifically for cases that involve state secrets. The judge, all attorneys authorized to do business with this court, and all related staff all have top secret security clearances. Once this court is in place, the government is no longer allowed to get dismissals of cases due to state secrecy. Instead, the case gets a change of venue to this court. Everything that happens in this court stays in this court to protect legitimate national security interests. The plaintiffs of course, can now apply for a security clearance, and there should be a "shall issue" clause in the laws, meaning the plaintiff in these cases must be granted a security clearance and be allowed to participate in the trial, unless there is a clear reason why he shouldn't get a security clearance, in which case, an attorney with a security clearance can stand in his place. Granted, there are problems - the plaintiff may still not be able to be represented properly, but this would be better than saying "Your case is dismissed to protect state secrecy."

Also, a law should be passed making it a very serious felony to use the state secrecy laws to conceal criminal activity.

[DemInDistress]

1. sounds more like their protecting their own asses from criminal

indictments and a lengthy prison sentence. Never in all my 58 yrs. have I seen and heard of this much secrecy in government. Chilling and scary. What do these neo-murderer's have in store for us? A New New Pearl Harbor?

The mood of the country is angry,(energy,health care,wars,debt,spying on citizens,and more) what will they do before the Nov.elections?

[acmejack]

2. We sure as hell have to do something.

It is ridiculous as it stands now. The State is very clearly abusing this to silence opponents as States are wont to do.