So Many Secrets

Since the onset of the Cold War, the state secrets privilege has been used to prevent the disclosure of evidence in litigation in instances where it would harm the national security. But the Bush administration took the practice much further, routinely arguing that entire cases must be dismissed before the evidence had even been identified because the very "subject matter" of the case was a state secret. As it so happened, the "subject matter" of all of these cases was an unlawful U.S. policy. Bush's use of the privilege thus transformed it from a narrow protection for specific evidence into a tool to avoid accountability in the courts.

So Many Secrets

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