'State secrets' privilege fuels surveillance bill battle - Yahoo! News

In the discussion of the House FISA bill, I've frequently discussed the telco immunity, it also represents a a significant change to the much abused state secrets privilige.

It now requires that evidence be presented to the judge, though not the litigants.

This is important because the state secrets privilege has been rotten to its core from its first use, which the Supreme Court heard as U.S. v. Reynolds, that had no actual state secrets involved.

The government just lied to the court in claiming that the B-29 involved in a crashwas on a secret mission, when the aircraft was not on a secret mission.

They simply did not want to admit that the crash was caused by grossly negligent maintenance.

The state secrets privilege should be abolished.