Subscribe[The President] may declare a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic to and from any compromised Federal government or United States critical infrastructure information system or network.I don't think this is really feasible for a "cybersecurity emergency", but I don't see a problem with disconnecting exploited machines from the network.
I love how Greenwald highlights a passage cited by the DOJ from a court opinion and says OBAMA wants this! I also love how he highlights working draft legislation and asserts OBAMA wants this!--IronmouthAs opposed to who, exactly? Isn't Obama ultimately responsible for the policies implemented by his DOJ?
(Please look at the sentence I quoted. If you can make it mean what you claim it means, then bravo; I cannot).--yoinkHere is the sentence you quoted, along with the one before it in full:
But the Obama DOJ demanded dismissal of the entire lawsuit based on (1) its Bush-mimicking claim that the "state secrets" privilege bars any lawsuits against the Bush administration for illegal spying, and (2) a brand new "sovereign immunity" claim of breathtaking scope -- never before advanced even by the Bush administration -- that the Patriot Act bars any lawsuits of any kind for illegal government surveillance unless there is "willful disclosure" of the illegally intercepted communications.It seems pretty obvious to me that when Greenwald talks about the "state secrets" privilege in the second sentence, he's talking about the same "state secrets" privilege referred too in the sentence immediately preceding it. That is, the privilege that bars any lawsuit against the bush administration. That interpretation of the privilege, the version of the privilege invented by the bush administration. According to Greenwald, is new.
In other words, beyond even the outrageously broad "state secrets" privilege invented by the Bush administration and now embraced fully by the Obama administration, the Obama DOJ has now invented a brand new claim of government immunity, one which literally asserts that the U.S. Government is free to intercept all of your communications (calls, emails and the like) and -- even if what they're doing is blatantly illegal and they know it's illegal -- you are barred from suing them unless they "willfully disclose" to the public what they have learned.
Nobody -- not the ACLU or anyone else -- argues that the State Secrets privilege is inherently invalid. Nobody contests that there is such a thing as a legitimate state secret. Nobody believes that Obama should declassify every last secret and never classify anything else ever again. Nor does anyone even assert that this particular lawsuit clearly involves no specific documents or portions of documents that might be legitimately subject to the privilege. Those are all transparent, moronic strawmen advanced by people who have no idea what they're talking about.,In other words, Greenwald does know what he's talking about, and you don't.
What was abusive and dangerous about the Bush administration's version of the States Secret privilege -- just as the Obama/Biden campaign pointed out -- was that it was used not (as originally intended) to argue that specific pieces of evidence or documents were secret and therefore shouldn't be allowed in a court case, but instead, to compel dismissal of entire lawsuits in advance based on the claim that any judicial adjudication of even the most illegal secret government programs would harm national security. That is the theory that caused the bulk of the controversy when used by the Bush DOJ -- because it shields entire government programs from any judicial scrutiny -- and it is that exact version of the privilege that the Obama DOJ yesterday expressly advocated (and, by implication, sought to preserve for all Presidents, including Obama).
Great, I've got a stalker.--yoinkNo, you're just wrong a lot. But more irritatingly, in addition to being wrong, you condescend to people who are correct.
January 1990: FBI’s Investigation of Child’s School Project Upheld
A lawsuit against the FBI’s investigation of a sixth-grade boy and his school project to create an “encyclopedia of the world” is stopped when an appeals court rules that the agency is shielded by the “state secrets” privilege (see March 9, 1953). Unable to secure information from the FBI as to why it investigated him, the child had therefore “failed to sustain his burden of proof [and] the cause of action was properly dismissed.”
Before: case gets dismissed because key peice of evidence is state secret
After: Case gets dismissed because we say so, even though there is evidence which is already known.
This time the plaintiffs file over 2,500 pages of unclassified documentary evidence supporting their claims that the contractors were negligent in their design and implementation of the weapons systems aboard the Stark. The appeals court finds that regardless of the amount of evidence entered, to allow the trial would be to potentially infringe on the US government’s “state secrets” privilege (see March 9, 1953). “[N]o amount of effort could safeguard the privileged information,” the court rules.
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posted by dibblda at 12:19 PM on April 7