U.S. court upholds dismissal of lawsuit against NSA on 'state secrets' grounds

Re:U.S. court upholds dismissal of lawsuit against NSA on 's... by xxpor on Thursday September 16, 2021 @03:16PM (#28555995)

>how on Earth are the judiciary and executive on equal footing if the executive can simply cause a default outcome of any trial against it?

You have to remember, the default answer to "Can I sue the government?" is No. The only suits you're allowed to take to trial are ones the government has allowed themselves to be sued for.

For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Tort_Claims_Act

While I think the entire idea of sovereign immunity is bullshit, the chance of the doctrine being overturned is next to 0. So we have to live with it. The point is, you're kind of lucky to even get as far as getting this dismissed over state secrets.

The real problem with the state secret doctrine is when the feds intervene in a suit between two private parties.

https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2014/09/uani-state-secrets/

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Re:U.S. court upholds dismissal of lawsuit against NSA on 's... by einpoklum on Thursday September 16, 2021 @03:51PM (#28556566)

I believe you're quoting an irrelevant rule.

AFAICT, this was not a torts lawsuit. Wikimedia was not suing for damages, it asked the courts to declare certain government practices illegal and/or force the government to desist these practices.

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