Title

On the Conflation of the State Secrets Privilege and the Totten Doctrine

Authors

D. A. Jeremy Telman, Valparaiso University School of Law

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2013

Abstract

The state secrets privilege (SSP) has become a major hindrance to litigation that seeks to challenge abuses of executive power in the context of the War on Terror. The Supreme Court first embraced and gave shape to the SSP as an evidentiary privilege in a 1953 case, United States v. Reynolds. Increasingly, the government relies on the SSP to seek pre-discovery dismissal of suits alleging torts and constitutional violations by the government. Lower federal courts have permitted such pre-discovery dismissal because they have confused the SSP with a non-justiciability doctrine derived from an 1875 case, Totten v. United States. The Totten doctrine only applies to claims brought by people who have entered into voluntary relationships with the government, but it is now being invoked when the government seeks dismissal of tort claims through the SSP. While the government should invoke the SSP whenever necessary to prevent disclosure of information that might jeopardize national security, such invocations of the SSP should never result in pre-discovery dismissal.

Comments

Digital Commons @ American University Washington College of Law © 2013

Recommended Citation

D. A. Jeremy Telman, On the Conflation of the State Secrets Privilege and the Totten Doctrine, 3 Nat'l Security L. Brief, no. 1, 2013 at 1.