redblueamerica.com

In the New York Times this morning, good news that I had somehow missed:

Last week, Senator Edward Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat, and Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, jointly introduced the State Secrets Protection Act. The measure would require judges to examine the actual documents or other evidence for which the state secrets privilege is invoked, rather than relying on government affidavits asserting that the evidence is too sensitive to be publicly disclosed. Senator Patrick Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and an important supporter of the reform, has scheduled a hearing on the bill for Feb. 13. Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, expects to introduce a similar measure in the House.

Just to be recap: the current "state secrets privilege" law has been used by the government to end torture lawsuits. Instead of saying "no, we didn't torture," the government says "this involves our secrets, and public disclosure would harm the national security" -- and the judge in a lawsuit pretty much has to dismiss the case at that point

That's exactly what happened in the case of Mahar Arar, a Canadian who was detained by U.S. authorities, then taken to to Syria where he was allegedly tortured. Except -- oops -- it turned out there was no evidence Arar had any connection to terrorism. He sued the U.S. government, but the suit was dismissed because of the state secrets privilege.

That is troubling, to say the least.

Under current law, the government merely has to assert that national security would be harmed -- and, given that it is a defendant in a lawsuit, clearly has incentive to do so. The Kennedy-Specter law would give judges the power to review those claims, in secret.

Nobody wants the national security to be harmed. But people of good conscience should hope that the government shouldn't be able to hide behind the shield of "national security" in order to cover its own wrongdoing.