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I wouldn't jump to that conclusion. The state of military aircraft is extremely valuable information to an adversary that is trying to size up your forces.

dekhn 10y ago
While I agree (and actually support the concept of State Secrets), I want my Supreme Court cases and the precedences they establish to be grounded in cases where the facts actually support the idea that the government is protecting a state secret, rather than covering up its own problems. The secret documents in the Reynolds case were declassified later, and showed that it was unlikely their exposure would have damaged state secrecy (the russians had already cloned the B29, the accident report didn't give any details on the confidential equipment on board), and a fairly strong argument can be made they showed the government was trying to apply the privilege to hide their own failures in maintaining the aircraft, rather than protect critical secrets). In short: privilege should be applied sparingly and the precedence for it should be unimpeachable. In this case, the precedence is not unimpeachable; the specific case is still considered contentious.
- marcoperaza 10y ago
  My point though is that a failure to maintain military aircraft is sensitive information that could be used by the enemy. You don't want your enemy to know your weak spots. I'm happy for the courts to give the government broad deference in these cases, especially when constitutional principles are not hanging in the balance. Don't forget the time period that this happened in. The Soviets had tested their first nuke only a few years prior, Eastern Europe had fallen behind the Iron Curtain, communist movements were on the rise in the rest of Asia and had succeeded in taking China. The prospect of total war was very real. That you're doing a bad job of maintaining a certain class of warplane is very sensitive information in such an environment.

dekhn 10y ago

While I agree (and actually support the concept of State Secrets), I want my Supreme Court cases and the precedences they establish to be grounded in cases where the facts actually support the idea that the government is protecting a state secret, rather than covering up its own problems. The secret documents in the Reynolds case were declassified later, and showed that it was unlikely their exposure would have damaged state secrecy (the russians had already cloned the B29, the accident report didn't give any details on the confidential equipment on board), and a fairly strong argument can be made they showed the government was trying to apply the privilege to hide their own failures in maintaining the aircraft, rather than protect critical secrets). In short: privilege should be applied sparingly and the precedence for it should be unimpeachable. In this case, the precedence is not unimpeachable; the specific case is still considered contentious.

marcoperaza 10y ago
My point though is that a failure to maintain military aircraft is sensitive information that could be used by the enemy. You don't want your enemy to know your weak spots. I'm happy for the courts to give the government broad deference in these cases, especially when constitutional principles are not hanging in the balance. Don't forget the time period that this happened in. The Soviets had tested their first nuke only a few years prior, Eastern Europe had fallen behind the Iron Curtain, communist movements were on the rise in the rest of Asia and had succeeded in taking China. The prospect of total war was very real. That you're doing a bad job of maintaining a certain class of warplane is very sensitive information in such an environment.