Let's place the blame where it lies -- with this idiot judge. If a plaintiff has a legitimate case, and the goverment has a legitimate reason for secrecy, then it's the job of the judge to navigate these waters so justice is done. The judge has a ton of tools at his disposal. He can exclude certain evidence. He can review the evidence himself, which is probably what he would be doing in a bench trial anyway. He can give an indication of how he is likely to rule, knowing what he knows, and push the parties to settle. He can tell litigants that their chances would be better if they used lawyers who were cleared to have classified information. There are hundreds of things he can do, and he is required to do them, because <i>it's his damn job.</i><p>We give way too much deference to federal judges.
When the Government invokes the state secrets privilege in a lawsuit to conceal evidence, it should <i>lose</i> the case, not win it.<p>It seems to be an open secret that UANI is a front for the CIA and/or Mossad. Until now, that info only appeared in fringe blogs. Now it's in the mainstream press. So the coverup effort may have backfired.
I don't know why everybody's assuming that the reason the government interfered is because the United Against organization is a front for a US intelligence agency. Here's an alternative theory with just as much proof (ie, none): maybe the CIA impersonated this shipping company to sell some sabatoged centrifuges or whatnot to Iran. Maybe United Against really is what they say they are, and since they're ex-spooks, not current spooks, they dug up the cover story but not the real story. Explains why the shipping company is pissed about being blamed, why United felt the need to publicly shame them, and why the CIA might not want the world to know about it.<p>The real point is... we have no idea why the government cares. Don't assume it's the most obvious reason.
"United Against was founded in 2008 by a former CIA director and a group of retired diplomats to advocate against the nuclear Iran. Its board includes former directors of foreign intelligence services including the U.K.'s MI-6, Germany's BND - and Israel's Mossad."<p>So basically the defendant, "United Against Nuclear Iran", is an extended branch of several governments' spy agencies and enjoys all the protections that result from that status.
What the flying fuck. Basically, party A sues party B, and party B has the back of the government, so the court tells party A to go away. Reasons undisclosed.<p>Wow. Talk about Kafkaesque justice.
Looks like this has been going on for a while[0] and that Restis tried to quash the whole thing with, effectively, a bribe[1].<p>Shortly after filing this complaint, Restis was arrested for money laundering and embezzlement[2]. It's not clear whether those are legitimate allegations or themselves evidence of government gone wrong.<p>If this were a US citizen and it was clearly a case of the government wanting to avoid some embarrassment, it would be worth getting angry about. But in this case, where it's related to Iran and would have bearing on ongoing dealmaking, etc. it seems like asserting state privilege might actually be a good thing.<p>[0] <a href="http://fas.org/sgp/jud/statesec/restis/" rel="nofollow">http://fas.org/sgp/jud/statesec/restis/</a><p>[1] <a href="http://blogs.reuters.com/alison-frankel/2014/02/18/the-perils-of-suing-for-libel-greek-magnate-and-iran-edition/" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.reuters.com/alison-frankel/2014/02/18/the-peril...</a><p>[2] <a href="http://shippingwatch.com/carriers/article5762315.ece" rel="nofollow">http://shippingwatch.com/carriers/article5762315.ece</a>
Maybe the USA is now worse than Communist Russia. Maybe so.<p>But it sure would be nice to for once read a comment section that focus on other interesting aspects, instead of proclaiming for the millionth time that the USA is now a totalitarian dictatorship dystopia, how the rule of law is gone, and how the little guy has been forgotten.<p>I'm not saying those are unimportant questions, but if I had a nickel for every time one of those same comments was repeated on these types of articles, I would own several islands in the Bahamas.
"That so-called privilege doesn't come from the Constitution or from statute."<p>This is highly misleading, as it ignores the role that court cases play as precedent in common law jurisdictions. United States v Reynolds, for starters.
I wish we could sue the judge and request the Supreme Court identify if the behavior is allowed by the Constitution. But of course the Federal Government makes it impossible to get standing when the Constitution is clearly violated. It's like the People no longer matter.
I'm fine with the government claiming a state secrets privilege and the judge upholding it based on an in camera review. However, I see no reason for the case not to go forward with the available evidence publicly presented. This is a reasonable check on the government use of the privilege. If the government wants to hold back evidence, then the case gets decided on the available evidence presented to the fact-finder.
Saw this earlier via Glenn Greenwald: <a href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/26/new-low-obama-doj-federal-courts-abusing-state-secrets-privilege/" rel="nofollow">https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/03/26/new-low-obama-...</a>
This is pretty much the plot of the two most recent episodes of The BlackList.<p><a href="http://www.nbc.com/the-blacklist" rel="nofollow">http://www.nbc.com/the-blacklist</a>
I see no reason why DoJ wouldn't, in a case like this, employ some sort of ombudsman or public defender with clearance to argue on behalf of the plaintiff. In some way the two parties should be represented in the decision.
Our intelligence services are at war with Iran. Nearly every budget point, every effort, must be justified in terms of our struggle against the Iranians.<p>This is not that different than when we were in a cold war against the Soviet Union. The support structures of our government change slower than world politics and so our efforts against Iran can seem like a farce with us putting the same effort into their defeat.<p>We lost our chance to bring the Russians in as our allies and we will probably lose a similar chance with the Iranians with the nuclear negotiations happening in Geneva/Lausanne/Montreux right now. The bureaucracy moves too slow.
I know this is going to be a controversial opinion, but to me it seems that this is perfectly reasonable. As great as it would be for the government to be completely transparent, that is simply not practical. Transparency would hurt the US's security, so this is simply the best option.