Government Secrecy

11/05/2010

Secrets

By Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU at 6:11pm

Which secrets should be kept, and which should be exposed? Those questions are at the heart of Doug Liman's new film, Fair Game, which tells the story of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. Joe Wilson, remember, was the former U.S. diplomat who exposed one of the many false claims made by the Bush administration in the lead-up to the war in Iraq. Valerie Plame is Wilson's wife, a covert CIA operative whose identity the Bush administration disclosed to reporters in an effort to retaliate against Wilson.

04/09/2010

PCLOB

Obama to Appoint Privacy Board Members

By Suzanne Ito, ACLU at 2:09pm

A few weeks ago, Jay wrote about the Obama administration's failure to appoint members to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB). It looks like all those letters from members of Congress (PDF) and a civil liberties coalition (PDF) Jay mentioned might've been the nudge the president needed, because in today's Washington Post, Ellen Nakashima reported some good news: "The White House is vetting someone for one of the three Democratic seats on the board."

03/31/2010

PCLOB

Help Wanted: Oversight Over $60 Billion Security Establishment

By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 10:59am

(Originally posted on Daily Kos.)

Never before in history has the United States had such a huge, and increasingly powerful security establishment. This behemoth has tens of thousands of employees and a budget of at least $60 billion, and though first established to protect our country from outside threats, it is increasingly turning its eye inward upon the people of America. It is vital that we have strong checks and balances in place to counterbalance this growing, secretive center of government power. Unfortunately, in many ways Congress has been weakening, rather than strengthening, those checks and balances in recent years.

07/23/2012

Government Secrecy

Government Wins Right to Pretend That Cables Released by WikiLeaks Are Still Secret

By Nathan Freed Wessler, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 12:28pm

This morning a federal judge ruled that the government is free to continue pretending that the contents of State Department diplomatic cables already disclosed by WikiLeaks are secret. The case concerns an ACLU Freedom of Information Act request seeking 23 embassy cables that had been previously released by WikiLeaks, posted online, and widely discussed in the press. The government had responded by releasing redacted versions of 11 cables and withholding the other 12 in full.

06/21/2012

U.S. Torture

The “Watergate Moment” and the “Torture Moment”

We just marked the 40^th anniversary of the Watergate break-in, when five burglars associated with the White House were caught in the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, DC. The burglary unleashed a series of revelations of misdeeds that eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon on August 9, 1974.

06/14/2012

Freedom of Expression

Selective Leaks Worst of All Worlds for Free Speech

By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 1:21pm

As the election summer heats up, Republicans in Congress are making hay with what they claim are selective leaks by the Obama administration, designed to bolster the president’s national security cred. At a Senate Judiciary hearing yesterday, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) went so far as to call for Attorney General Holder’s resignation in part because of the leak issue. While the jury is decidedly out on the merits of these claims, these questions do need to be asked. If there is one thing more dangerous than over-classification of government information, it’s selective declassification for political gain.

06/07/2012

Targeted Killings

First the 'targeted killing' campaign, then the targeted propaganda campaign

By Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU & Nathan Freed Wessler, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 11:10am

Originally posted on The Guardian.

A story in last week's New York Times painted a remarkably detailed picture of the US government's so-called "targeted killing" campaign, a campaign that involves the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) to kill suspected insurgents and terrorists and, it turns out, many, many others, as well. The story, written by Jo Becker and Scott Shane, discussed the CIA's choice of munitions, its efforts to avoid civilian casualties, and its method for calculating the number of civilians killed in any given strike. The story also underscored the extent to which President Obama himself is involved in overseeing the campaign – and even in selecting its targets.

03/15/2012

Targeted Killings

Drone Strikes Filing Today: Appealing the CIA's Attempt to Hide the Worst-Kept Secret in the World

By Nathan Freed Wessler, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project at 3:17pm

Today the ACLU filed its appeal brief in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit seeking records about the CIA's use of drones to carry out targeted killings around the world. Like in our separate FOIA case seeking information about the legal and factual basis for the targeted killing of U.S. citizens, the CIA takes the position in this lawsuit that it can neither confirm nor deny whether it has a drone strike program at all. This is despite the fact that the Departments of Defense, State, and Justice all responded that they do in fact have documents on the program. As we told the court today, the CIA's position is simply untenable.

American Civil Liberties Union