Judge Threatens To Penalize U.S. In Wiretap Casehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/25/AR2009052502076.html?hpid=moreheadlinesPresident Obama vowed last week to rein in the use of a legal privilege that allows the administration to discard lawsuits that involve "state secrets," promising that a new policy is in the works that will quell criticism by civil libertarians.
But hours after Obama's speech laid out a "delicate balance" on national security, his Justice Department was criticized by a federal judge in California overseeing a case that has delved deeper than any other into one of the government's most highly classified data-gathering programs.
The Obama administration has invoked the state-secrets privilege in resisting a lawsuit filed by an Oregon charity whose attorneys may have been subjected to warrantless wiretapping. Late Friday, Chief U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker issued a terse order that raised the prospect of "sanctions" for government lawyers who have not responded to his order for a plan for how the case should proceed. The sanctions may include awarding monetary damages to the charity, the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation.
The document amounts to "Judge Walker's enough-is-enough order," said Jon Eisenberg, an attorney for the now-defunct charity.
A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the judge's order, which requires the government to respond in court by Friday.
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