Following up on yesterday’s sadness: If you’re not sure why it’s so sad that the Obama Administration is doing exactly what the Bush Administration did with state secrets, here’s why it matters:
When the executive branch invokes the state secrets privilege to shut down lawsuits, hides its programs behind secret OLC opinions, over-classifies information to avoid public disclosure, and interprets the Freedom of
Information Act as an information withholding statute, it shuts down all of the means to detect and respond to its abuses of the rule of law – whether those abuses involve torture, domestic spying, or the firing of U.S. Attorneys for partisan gain.
(Quoting Russ Feingold.) Why why why would the Obama Administration want to do that? Is this a case where AG Holder just hasn’t had time to order a change in policy (Glenn Greenwald says there’s no way that’s possible—they knew this was coming and could have asked for more time if that’s what they wanted), or….? I just can’t see anything but bad here…
