Legal doctrine allowing the government to block evidence or dismiss lawsuits on national security grounds
The state secrets privilege is a common-law evidentiary rule that allows the federal government to resist court-ordered disclosure of information — or to have entire lawsuits dismissed — by claiming that the litigation would expose information damaging to national security. The doctrine was established in the 1953 Supreme Court case United States v. Reynolds.
The Reynolds case itself is instructive. The government claimed that releasing an Air Force accident report would reveal military secrets. Decades later, when the report was declassified, it contained no secrets whatsoever — only evidence of government negligence that would have been embarrassing in court. The foundational case for the state secrets privilege was built on a lie.
The privilege has been invoked repeatedly to shut down lawsuits challenging government misconduct. Khaled El-Masri's lawsuit over his kidnapping and torture by the CIA was dismissed on state secrets grounds. The ACLU's challenge to the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program was dismissed on the same basis. Victims of extraordinary rendition, illegal surveillance, and torture have all been denied their day in court because the government claimed that any litigation would expose classified information.
