Presidents have invoked the state secrets privilege since the time of Jefferson to shield sensitive material from public view in order to protect national security, but the Bush White House has used it to great excess -- hence the abuse of power.  By carefully regulating the amount of information Congress and the Courts receive, the Administration has effectively squashed the judicial review of matters of his choosing.  This bill would not eliminate the Presidential privilege to deny information to courts, but rather it would set up a series of "road blocks" to help streamline the process of invoking the privilege.  The bill aims to "provide safe, fair, and responsible procedures and standards for resolving claims of state secret privilege."   In order to claim that information is a sensitive state secret, the government would have to issue an affidavit explaining how the evidence is sensitive and in what ways it would threaten national security.  Unclassified versions of these affidavits would in turn be made public, thus creating a public record of the Executive's use of this privilege.

Not only does this bill boost public access to the Executive's decisions, it allows the Congress to more efficiently do its job.  Bush's use of the state secrets privilege has blocked Congress from doing its oversight job over and over during the past seven and a half years.  Thus, this bill simply re-asserts Congress' constitutionally granted powers.  Its passage would set a clear precedent for the use of this incredibly powerful executive tool and protect against further abuse, just one piece of our Recapture the Flag campaign to expose and end abuses of power made under the Bush Administration.