rssJudge Rules Government Must Turn Over Classified Information
Tuesday, September 08, 2009 at 1:33 pm
- 2 Comments
In surprising slap-in-the-face order to the government, a federal judge ruled last month that a court can require the government to disclose classified information to an individual with security clearance even if the executive branch doesn’t want to.
Steven Aftergood at Secrecy News reports that Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington, D.C., ruled on August 26 in the case of Richard A. Horn v. Franklin Huddle, Jr. that the parties in the lawsuit need to be able to discuss classified information they possess with their lawyers. The case was brought by a former agent of the Drug Enforcement Agency who says his home in Burma was illegally wiretapped by the CIA in 1993 (apparently via a government-issued coffee table) because they didn’t like his work on the Burmese drug trade.Although the government tried to argue that the case should be dismissed on “state secrets” grounds, as it has many other cases, Judge Lamberth disagreed, and noted that the government had lied to the court about the information it said was secret. Judge Lamberth was therefore not inclined to trust the government’s judgment on what “classified” information could be viewed by the attorneys involved.
“The deference generally granted the Executive Branch in matters of classification and national security must yield when the Executive attempts to exert control over the courtroom,” Judge Lamberth wrote.
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Pingback posted September 8, 2009 @ 2:04 pm
[...] in Daily life, Government, Law, Obama administration at 11:04 am by LeisureGuy Daphne Eviatar in the Washington Independent: In surprising slap-in-the-face order to the government, a federal judge ruled last month that a [...]
Comment posted September 9, 2009 @ 3:33 pm
This is exactly what I'm on about regarding the Executive power grab that began with the May 30, 2000 adoption of “full-spectrum dominance.”
Wouldn't FSD explain the control of the courts sought across the board by Obama as he follows in Bush's footsteps? It may be a DoD doctrine, but when they say “full-spectrum,” that means everything:
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Joint Vision 2020 Emphasizes Full-spectrum Dominance
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, June 2, 2000 – “Full-spectrum dominance” is the key term in “Joint Vision 2020,” the blueprint DoD will follow in the future.
Joint Vision 2020, released May 30 and signed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Henry Shelton, extends the concept laid out in Joint Vision 2010. Some things will not change. The mission of the U.S. military today and tomorrow is to fight and win the nation's wars. How DoD goes about doing this is 2020's focus.
Full-spectrum dominance means the ability of U.S. forces, operating alone or with allies, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of military operations.
While full-spectrum dominance is the goal, the way to get there is to “invest in and develop new military capabilities.” The four capabilities at the heart of full-spectrum dominance are dominant maneuver, precision engagement, focused logistics and full-dimensional protection.
These four capabilities need the full capabilities of the total force. “To build the most effective force for 2020, we must be fully joint: intellectually, operationally, organizationally, doctrinally and technically,” the report states.
[...]
Joint Vision 2020 addresses full-spectrum dominance across the range of conflicts from nuclear war to major theater wars to smaller-scale contingencies. It also addresses amorphous situations like peacekeeping and noncombat humanitarian relief. Key to U.S. dominance in any conflict will be what the chairman calls “decision superiority” — translating information superiority into better decisions arrived at and implemented faster than an enemy can react.
The development of a global information grid will provide the environment for decision superiority.
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.asp…
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When DoD says things like “across the range of military operations,” that means everything. I don't think they're going to go to all the trouble of invading and occupying strategic areas, only to have some elected yokel or appointed judge upset the whole cart on their home turf by declaring portions of it illegal or unconstitutional.
Full-spectrum dominance is the key doctrine shaping events today. It's our ill-fated attempt to machine the world into submission under the threat of our nuclear weapons. IMO, our nukes are driving our leaders mad with power, and that power is the Ring we must return to the fire that forged it, ie, get rid of nukes.
As long as we have them, there will be people planning to use them; and their counterparts will be planning defenses, which we'll try to overcome to our own ultimate peril.
At root, this is a mythological problem: is life really an eternal holy war with an absolutely evil other with whom peace is unthinkable? In the Life as Holy War world, war is normal, not peace. And if we look at US history, what do we see? War is what we do.
Why do we use war as the metaphor for everything under the sun? There was even a ludicrous “coffee war” in Seattle last year! Because that's how most of the Western world believes the world *works:* as a war machine led by god's own landlords here on earth. Even sophisticates who think myths beneath them imagine the cosmos to be a fully-automatic mechanism. But is that true?
If the cosmos is a mechanism, then so are we; and mechanisms have no free will, they are simply forced into order by the application of sufficient “kinetic activity.” So if the cosmos really is a mechanism, then the torturers and war-mongers are right.
Are we beings, or machines? Or are WE beings, and THEY are machines? Why is it ok for us to seek to dominate everyone else? How can we Americans accept FSD as doctrine when we wouldn't accept it here at home? How is FSD being implemented here? Is that why the Executive branch is seeking so much control over the courts?
Why is Obama turning out to be a lot like Bush? When SecState Clinton renewed our threat against Britain, should their courts reveal how we tortured Binyam Mohamed, what legal principle was she enforcing? None. She was asserting full-spectrum dominance over even the courts of Britain. Imagine how they feel about our own courts.
It's the dominance, dammit!
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