Reports: Justice reconsidering state secrecy
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is reconsidering government agencies' ability to use claims of state secrecy to block the release of information about controversial counterterrorism strategies like rendition and warrantless wiretapping, two newspapers reported Wednesday.
Under a revised policy reported by The Washington Post, an agency trying to hide such information would have to convince Attorney General Eric Holder and a panel of Justice Department lawyers that its release would compromise national security. The Post cited anonymous Justice Department officials.
In a draft of a memorandum obtained by The New York Times, Holder wrote that the goal of the revised policy is "to strengthen public confidence that the U.S. government will invoke the privilege in court only when genuine and significant harm to national defense or foreign relations is at stake and only to the extent necessary to safeguard those interests."
Such claims of state secrecy have required a lower standard of proof that the information was dangerous, as well as the approval of fewer officials, the Post said.
Both papers said the Justice Department could announce the new policy as early as Wednesday.
The Bush administration frequently claimed state secrecy when defending against lawsuits filed by people claiming they had been tortured or illegally wiretapped. The Obama administration, which is still dealing with some of those cases, has continued to assert the state secrecy privilege.
Source: The Associated Press
