We reported Friday of a three-hour hearing in San Francisco federal court in which the Justice Department repeatedly invoked the state secrets privilege and demanded U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White dismiss a lawsuit accusing the government of siphoning Americans’ electronic communications from willing telecoms and funneling them to the National Security Agency without warrants.
As it turns out, the San Francisco federal court produced two roughly 90-minute videos of the hearing as part of a pilot project and just published them on its website. Normally, cameras in the court are not allowed.
So in the holiday spirit of things, we are posting the videos here so they may be enjoyed as a reason to drink — and not just because of the subject material. With friends and family, imbibe your beverage of choice every time Judge White, Justice Department attorney Anthony Coppolino or Richard Wiebe, the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s lawyer or any other participant utters “state secrets.”
Or just focus on Coppolino. You’re guaranteed to get inebriated.
For heavier drinkers, you can up the ante by drinking when one of them substitutes “state secrets” with the words “privilege” or “doctrine.”
Either way, when the hearing is over, you may have to check yourself into Alcoholics Anonymous.
The state secrets doctrine was first recognized by the Supreme Court in the McCarthy era, and is asserted when the government claims litigation threatens national security. Judges routinely dismiss cases on that assertion alone.
It should be noted that the government lied in that 1953 Supreme Court case and knowingly and falsely claimed litigation about a downed B-29 threatened national security.
Judge White has yet to rule on the Obama administration’s state secrets assertion.
FYI: The court published the videos in a proprietary, Flash-based format.
