August 31, 2007

Bush Administration Tries to Assert 'State Secrets' Privilege in SWIFT Case

The Bush administration is signaling that it plans to turn again to a legal tool, the “state secrets” privilege, to try to stop a suit against a Belgian banking cooperative that secretly supplied millions of private financial records to the United States government, court documents show. The suit against the consortium, known as Swift, threatens to disrupt the operations of a vital national security program and to disclose “highly classified information” if it continues, the Justice Department has said in court filings. Historically, courts have been reluctant to challenge the secrecy privilege. But the administration has suffered setbacks in seeking to use the secrecy claim in the eavesdropping case and several other recent cases.

U.S. Cites ‘Secrets’ Privilege as It Tries to Stop Suit on Banking Records, New York Times, August 31, 2007.