apropos of nothing in particular

Long ago I suggested that some bright young attorney take up the challenge to slowly, brick-by-brick, dismantle the so-called "state secrets privilege".

The State Secrets Privilege is an evidentiary rule created by United States legal precedent. The court is asked to exclude evidence from a legal case based solely on an affidavit submitted by the government stating court proceedings might disclose sensitive information which might endanger national security, and military secrets in particular as in the case of United States v. Reynolds, the first case that saw formal recognition of the privilege.
[Wikipedia entry, State Secrets Privilege; emphasis added]

I note in passing that Obama's DoJ has continued to assert the privilege.

As it happens, the accident report at the center of the state secrets privilege in U.S. v. Reynolds was declassified in 2000.
Lo! and Behold: the report confirms that poor maintenance contributed to the crash, but contains nothing bearing on "national security"! The privilege was invoked to conceal government incompetence!

My suspicion (and so long as this evidentiary rule is in place, this suspicion can be neither confirmed nor refuted) is that more often than not, the privilege is invoked to protect not "national security", but government incompetence, ineptitude, and malfeasance.

Acknowledging that the Declaration of Independence has no legal standing, I nevertheless invoke its central premise:

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...
[emphasis added]

I note that in modern legal theory, "consent" is taken to imply "informed consent".

How can We the People give our informed consent to our government when that government hides behind the cloak of the state secrets privilege?

My personal opinion is that the continued recognition of this privilege is an indication that government of, by, and for the people has already perished from the earth.