Secrecy News: State Secrets Abuses?; Intelligence in the Bosnian War
Secrecy News: State Secrets
Abuses?; Intelligence in the Bosnian War
About
Secrecy News
SECRECY NEWS is an email publication of
the Federation of American Scientists (FAS)
Project on Government Secrecy. It provides
informal coverage of new developments in secrecy,
security and intelligence policies, as well
as links to new acquisitions on the Federation
of American Scientists web site. It
is published 2 to 3 times a week, or as events
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U.S. government attorneys last week denied allegations that a 1953
Supreme Court decision which enshrined the concept of the "state secrets
privilege" was based on a fraudulent factual foundation.
The Reynolds case originated over half a century ago when the widows
of three crew members who died in a 1948 crash of a B-29 Superfortress
bomber requested accident reports on the crash. The Air Force denied
the request and filed affidavits with the Supreme Court claiming that
the withheld reports contained information about the aircraft's secret
mission and described secret electronic equipment on board that had
to be protected from disclosure. The Court, citing that claim, ruled
in favor of the Air Force and established the "state secrets privilege."
Earlier last year, the plaintiffs had petitioned the Supreme Court
to reopen the case, but the Court rejected the motion to file the
petition.
Consequently, the Reynolds survivors, represented by the same law
firm as 50 years ago, filed a new initial complaint in federal district
court. See Herring v. United States, filed October 1 in the Eastern
District of Pennsylvania, here.
Last week, the government moved to dismiss the case, arguing
that the plaintiffs are not qualified to assess the original
sensitivity of the now declassified documents.
"Use of the state secrets privilege in courts has grown significantly
over the last twenty-five years," note William G. Weaver and Robert
M. Pallitto of the University of Texas at El Paso.
In November 2001 President Bush issued executive order 13233
that would permit former presidents to independently assert
the state secrets privilege to bar disclosure of records
generated during their tenure.
More than that, the Bush order would make the state secrets
privilege hereditary, like some divine right of kings,
enabling the heirs of deceased presidents to assert the
privilege after their death.
"This is a power heretofore unrecognized either in courts or
politics," Weaver and Pallitto observe.
INTELLIGENCE AND THE WAR IN BOSNIA 1992-1995
The role of Western intelligence services in the war in Bosnia
a decade ago is probed with rigor and insight in a newly
reissued book by University of Amsterdam Professor Cees
Wiebes.
The author explores in depth the perceptions and interactions
of the various intelligence services, the contributions of
signals intelligence and satellite imagery, and the evidence
of clandestine arms transfers from Iran to Bosnian Muslims.
Based in part on interviews with the principals and the
still-classified archives of Dutch security services and the
United Nations, it is an unusually impressive addition to the
literature of intelligence.
"Intelligence
and the War in Bosnia, 1992-1995" by Cees Wiebes was assessed
in this January 23 article by Brendan O'Neill, including an interview
with the author and a link to the publisher:
