In a democracy, the public should have the right to know what the government is doing. Secrecy should be the rare exception, reserved for a few cases in which the national security is truly at stake. This book is the hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate that took place on February 13th 2008. While considering the state secrets privileges, assertions of the privilege by the executive branch were examined as well.The state secrets privilege is a common law evidentiary privilege that shields sensitive national security information from disclosure in litigation. The government is the only party that can assert the privilege, and application of the privilege can result in dismissal of civil litigation. The United States Senate, in this book, discuss the importance that courts act as an independent check on the government when it asserts the state secret privilege. It proposes a policy designed to promote a meaningful, independent review.

Examining the state secrets privilege: protecting national security while preserving accountability: hearing before the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, One Hundred Tenth Congress, second session, February 13, 2008.

The state secrets privilege is a judicially created evidentiary privilege that allows the gov¿t. to resist court-ordered disclosure of info. during litigation, if there is a reasonable danger that such disclosure would harm the nat. security of the U.S. Contents of this report: (1) U.S. v. Reynolds: Asserting the Privilege; Evaluating the Validity of the Privilege; Effect of a Valid Privilege; (2) Totten v. U.S.: Special Case of Nonjusticiable Contracts for Espionage; (3) Classified Info. Procedures Act and Secret Evidence in Criminal Litigation:Withholding Classified Info. During Discovery; Confrontation Clause and the Use of Secret Evidence at Trial; (4) Legislative Modification of the State Secrets Privilege: Foreign Intell. Surveillance Act; State Secrets Protection Act.

The State Secrets Privilege is an evidentiary rule created by United States legal precedent. The court is asked to exclude evidence from a legal case based solely on an affidavit submitted by the government stating court proceedings might disclose sensitive information which might endanger national security and military secrets in particular as in the case of United States v. Reynolds, the first case that saw formal recognition of the privilege.

The state secrets privilege is a judicially created evidentiary privilege that allows the government to resist court-ordered disclosure of information during litigation, if there is a reasonable danger that such disclosure would harm the national security of the United States. The Supreme Court first described the modern analytical framework of the state secrets privilege in the 1953 case of United States v. Reynolds. In its opinion, the Court laid out a two-step procedure to be used when evaluating a claim of privilege to protect state secrets. First, there must be a formal claim of privilege, lodged by the head of the department which has control over the matter, after actual personal consideration by that officer. Second, a court must independently determine whether the circumstances are appropriate for the claim of privilege, and yet do so without forcing a disclosure of the very thing the privilege is designed to protect. If the privilege is appropriately invoked, it is absolute and the disclosure of the underlying information cannot be compelled by the court. The Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) provides pretrial procedures that permit a trial judge to rule on questions of admissibility involving classified information before introduction of the evidence in ...