Problems and Genesis of State Secrets Privilege Detailed in Book
An Air Force accident report that was shielded from litigants because of the state secrets privilege turned out to carry no secrets but instead information indicating negligence.
The plaintiffs were three widows whose husbands were killed 60 years ago on a secret mission aboard a B-29 bomber that crashed. Their case, United States v. Reynolds, established the privilege. It is detailed in the new book Claim of Privilege, by Barry Siegel, according to a New York Times review.
A federal appeals court had affirmed a trial judge’s decision in the case to award the widows about $500,000 each in today’s dollars after the federal government refused to release the report.
But the U.S. Supreme Court reversed in United States v. Reynolds and recognized the privilege. Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson wrote of a “reasonable danger” that the accident report “would contain references to the secret electronic equipment which was the primary concern of the mission,” a concern that later turned out to be unfounded.
The accident report released in 1996 showed “appalling negligence,” according to the review. The case illustrates how problematic the privilege is, reviewer Adam Liptak writes.
“By giving the executive branch close to unilateral power to have lawsuits dismissed on national security grounds, the privilege can easily turn into a device to conceal government misconduct and to frustrate justice,” the review says.
