State secrets claim raises ire

WASHINGTON, March 25 (UPI) -- U.S. civil liberties groups are accusing the Obama administration of claiming privilege to keep secret some of intelligence-gathering work of his predecessor.

The claims come in the wake of the Obama Justice Department's intimating that government lawyers might take classified documents from the court's custody in a case filed by an Oregon charity suspected of funding terrorism, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.

The civil suit by the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation has proceeded further than any other challenge to the use of warrantless wiretaps. As did government lawyers in former President George W. Bush's administration, the new Justice Department has claimed state-secret privilege, which would allow exclusion of evidence on grounds that it jeopardizes national security, the Post said. The charity claims the government's alleged illegal eavesdropping of the organization's board members and attorneys five years ago violated the charity's rights to due process and free speech.

A ruling is expected soon.

"There has to be other ways to protect secret information without having to block accountability," Erwin Chemerinsky, a University of California-Irvine law professor, told the Post.

In the case, the Obama administration not only maintained the Bush administration's position but also warned that if the judge keeps resisting the privilege claim, authorities could remove the documents.

"Any way you look at it, it's pretty remarkable," said Jon Eisenberg, an attorney for al-Haramain. "This is an executive branch threat to exercise control over a judicial branch function."

A bipartisan Senate group, including Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and ranking Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, introduced legislation last month that would require judges be able to look at the classified evidence when the government raises the state-secrets claim.