This is change?

Handling Of 'State Secrets' At Issue
Like Predecessor, New Justice Dept. Claiming Privilege
By Carrie Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Civil liberties advocates are accusing the Obama administration of forsaking campaign rhetoric and adopting the same expansive arguments that his predecessor used to cloak some of the most sensitive intelligence-gathering programs of the Bush White House.

The first signs have come just weeks into the new administration, in a case filed by an Oregon charity suspected of funding terrorism. President Obama's Justice Department not only sought to dismiss the lawsuit by arguing that it implicated "state secrets," but also escalated the standoff -- proposing that government lawyers might take classified documents from the court's custody to keep the charity's representatives from reviewing them.

A stroll down memory lane:

Just for fun: I note that the "state secrets privilege" was first formally articulated by the Supreme Court in 1953 decision, United States v Reynolds. The U.S. asserted that relevant evidence contained state secrets and that revealing this evidence would compromise national security. As a consequence of this evidentiary ruling, the widows of three men killed in the crash of a B-29 Superfortress were precluded from seeking damages from the government.

Documents released in 2000 revealed that the assertion of the "state secrets privilege" was bogus - or at least, paper thin. No threat to national security was involved - or none that couldn't have been surgically redacted. The documents DID reveal that the plane was in poor condition - probably not really flight-worthy.

... and jsut for fun:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."
[Declaration of Independence]

... and I'll note that in modern legal theory, consent is generally interpreted to mean informed consent.
A government that hides behind the cloak of "state secrets" does NOT derive its just powers from the consent of the governed.

Stop the madness!!!