The Supreme Court, “State Secrets,” and Cover-Up
The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment. That I do not intend to permit to the extent that it is in my control. And no official of my Administration, whether his rank is high or low, civilian or military, should interpret my words here tonight as an excuse to censor the news, to stifle dissent, to cover up our mistakes or to withhold from the press and the public the facts they deserve to know.—John F. Kennedy, “The President and the Press,” April 27, 1961.
In his speech “The President and the Press” (quoted above and below) Kennedy was admonishing the Press to keep such military secrets as satellite specifications and troop movements out of the public domain, while acknowledging the need to keep the public informed about the governments errors and mistakes. Specifically, he was concerned about public reporting of things like:
the size, the strength, the location and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use, have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power; and that, in at least in one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites were followed required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money.
He criticizes the tactics of authoritarian regimes (which our government has since engaged in):
…For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.
However, Kennedy recognized the differences between military secrets and the sorts of facts that the public deserves to know:
No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.
I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers--I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man* once said: "An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.
*Orlando Aloysius Batista
The events of Dealey Plaza were “errors.” The failure to reveal what happened was a “mistake.” The alterations to the Zapruder Film and other evidence compounded the “mistake.” The doubling down and refusing to admit to previous mistakes, most notably Biden’s squandered opportunity to “come clean” on December 15 reinforces the “mistake.”
And the excuse (not the reason) that has been used to “justify” the ongoing cover-up has been “national security.”
All that the government has to do in order to hide anything is to cite “national security,” and claim “State Secret Privilege.”
“National security” privilege or “State Secret” privilege is absolute, “black letter law.” And that needs to change!
There have been two U.S. Supreme Court cases that have established “national security” can be used as a means to excuse unethical actions. The “National Security” privilege has been used to justify and cover up illegal behavior (torture), and to cover up negligence that results in fatalities.
In March of this year (2022), the Supreme Court of the United States in its decision in the case United States v. Zubaydah decided that the U.S. government agencies could keep “State Secrets” about its torturing of prisoners (in this case, occurring at a U.S. “black site” in Poland). In a dissenting opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch (in one of the very few instances that I agree with him) said this:
“The critical questions we must ask about state secrets privilege are as follows: Does revealing illegal government conduct damage U.S. national security interests more than accepting responsibility for them? Or is greater damage done to national security when the government engages in illegal conduct and tries to cover it up?”
See https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/how-the-state-secrets-doctrine-undermines-democracy for more information. But the case relates to upholding the “State Secrets” privilege even when the government engages in illegal behavior.
The Supreme Court decision that is probably more pertinent to the Kennedy assassination is the 1953 decision in United States v. Reynolds, which gave the U.S. government “Absolute Privilege” in withholding information. In the Reynolds decision, case related to a B-29 plane crash that occurred in 1948, and in which a number of people were killed. Some of the widows sued to find out what happened. They repeatedly won their case to receive the information they wanted, constantly appealed before they could get it, until the U.S. government appealed to the Supreme Court, when the Supreme Court finally ruled in the government’s favor, because, it was said, the plane had been on a “secret mission,” and releasing the information requested by the widows would “endanger the entire mission.”
That “Secret Mission” excuse to justify the “national security” privilege was a lie.
There was a crash report that had been retroactively classified, meaning that it had been unclassified until the government retroactively decided to classify it. That report was ultimately the key to revealing what actually happened, which occurred well after the Supreme Court decision.
One of the victims, Al Palya, had a daughter who was just weeks old at the time of the crash. Years later, as an adult, the daughter (Judy Palya Loether) went on a quest to learn what had happened to her father. Eventually, through the help of print and broadcast media, she eventually got hold of a copy of the crash report from someone who had obtained it before it became “classified.”
Only, it wasn’t a “crash” report; it was an “accident” report.
The cause of the crash turned out to be negligence in U.S. Air Force maintenance of its B-29 fleet.
Palya’s daughter was ultimately successful in uncovering the facts surrounding her father’s death because of the attention her case received from print and broadcast journalists. However, anyone who looks into the Kennedy assassination is now seemingly a “conspiracy theorist”—a term the CIA coined to counteract critics of the JFK assassination’s Warren Commission’s report and which has ultimately and lumped JFK assassination researchers with the likes of Q-Anon believers, stolen election believers, Holocaust deniers, believers in school shooting “crisis actors,” and so on.
It was negligence that caused Al Palya to lose his life, not anything to do with any “secret mission.” The whole “secret mission” story was concocted as a cover-up to what really happened, in order to falsely justify the need for a “State Secrets” privilege.
But the decision that the government could withhold information due to “State Secrets” privilege was now “black letter law.” Stare Decisis.
That decision needs to be challenged.
The ridiculous claims of “national security” being used to cover up the matters of negligence surrounding the Reynolds/Palya case is similar to the type of obstruction of the Kennedy assassination. However, in the case of the Kennedy assassination, it wasn’t just failure to acknowledge the Secret Service lapses and accidental AR-15 slam-fire head shot, it was the active cover-up (alterations to the Zapruder Film alteration as well as other film and photographic evidence), as well as cover-up of the cover-up of the cover-up from the continued failure to acknowledge the initial events and the ongoing nature of the cover-up.
“National Security” and “State Secrets” privilege needs to be limited to military technical specifications and intelligence sources, and not apply to active cover-up of “errors,” which can be corrected. The “National Security” or “State Secrets” privilege should not be used to further compound “mistakes.” The withholding of “methods” should not include alterations of evidence to which the public has a right to access.
“An error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.”
—Orland Alosius Battista, quoted by President John F. Kennedy
The initial events of Dealey Plaza were “mistakes.” They are forgivable. Not so forgivable are the “errors” of the cover-up, and the ongoing cover-up of the cover-up by the refusal to acknowledge what actually happened in Dealey Plaza.
Not so forgivable are the cover-up, and the cover-up of the cover-up.
That sort of use of the "National Security" or "State Secrets" privilege must stop!
And it begins with the government correcting its "mistakes" related to the Kennedy assassination.
Thank you.
-Denise
Next steps: Mounting legal challenges to get "national security" more narrowly defined so that it only applies to technical specifications, protection of living sources and current methods of intelligence gathering, etc., and not apply to after-the-fact covering up of "errors," mistakes, negligence, illegal behaviors, and the like. If you have any good advice, please you the "Contacts" page to share that with me!
In his speech “The President and the Press” (quoted above and below) Kennedy was admonishing the Press to keep such military secrets as satellite specifications and troop movements out of the public domain, while acknowledging the need to keep the public informed about the governments errors and mistakes. Specifically, he was concerned about public reporting of things like:
the size, the strength, the location and the nature of our forces and weapons, and our plans and strategy for their use, have all been pinpointed in the press and other news media to a degree sufficient to satisfy any foreign power; and that, in at least in one case, the publication of details concerning a secret mechanism whereby satellites were followed required its alteration at the expense of considerable time and money.
He criticizes the tactics of authoritarian regimes (which our government has since engaged in):
…For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.
However, Kennedy recognized the differences between military secrets and the sorts of facts that the public deserves to know:
No President should fear public scrutiny of his program. For from that scrutiny comes understanding; and from that understanding comes support or opposition. And both are necessary. I am not asking your newspapers to support the Administration, but I am asking your help in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people. For I have complete confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens whenever they are fully informed.
I not only could not stifle controversy among your readers--I welcome it. This Administration intends to be candid about its errors; for as a wise man* once said: "An error does not become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." We intend to accept full responsibility for our errors; and we expect you to point them out when we miss them.
*Orlando Aloysius Batista
The events of Dealey Plaza were “errors.” The failure to reveal what happened was a “mistake.” The alterations to the Zapruder Film and other evidence compounded the “mistake.” The doubling down and refusing to admit to previous mistakes, most notably Biden’s squandered opportunity to “come clean” on December 15 reinforces the “mistake.”
And the excuse (not the reason) that has been used to “justify” the ongoing cover-up has been “national security.”
All that the government has to do in order to hide anything is to cite “national security,” and claim “State Secret Privilege.”
“National security” privilege or “State Secret” privilege is absolute, “black letter law.” And that needs to change!
There have been two U.S. Supreme Court cases that have established “national security” can be used as a means to excuse unethical actions. The “National Security” privilege has been used to justify and cover up illegal behavior (torture), and to cover up negligence that results in fatalities.
In March of this year (2022), the Supreme Court of the United States in its decision in the case United States v. Zubaydah decided that the U.S. government agencies could keep “State Secrets” about its torturing of prisoners (in this case, occurring at a U.S. “black site” in Poland). In a dissenting opinion, Justice Neil Gorsuch (in one of the very few instances that I agree with him) said this:
“The critical questions we must ask about state secrets privilege are as follows: Does revealing illegal government conduct damage U.S. national security interests more than accepting responsibility for them? Or is greater damage done to national security when the government engages in illegal conduct and tries to cover it up?”
See https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/how-the-state-secrets-doctrine-undermines-democracy for more information. But the case relates to upholding the “State Secrets” privilege even when the government engages in illegal behavior.
The Supreme Court decision that is probably more pertinent to the Kennedy assassination is the 1953 decision in United States v. Reynolds, which gave the U.S. government “Absolute Privilege” in withholding information. In the Reynolds decision, case related to a B-29 plane crash that occurred in 1948, and in which a number of people were killed. Some of the widows sued to find out what happened. They repeatedly won their case to receive the information they wanted, constantly appealed before they could get it, until the U.S. government appealed to the Supreme Court, when the Supreme Court finally ruled in the government’s favor, because, it was said, the plane had been on a “secret mission,” and releasing the information requested by the widows would “endanger the entire mission.”
That “Secret Mission” excuse to justify the “national security” privilege was a lie.
There was a crash report that had been retroactively classified, meaning that it had been unclassified until the government retroactively decided to classify it. That report was ultimately the key to revealing what actually happened, which occurred well after the Supreme Court decision.
One of the victims, Al Palya, had a daughter who was just weeks old at the time of the crash. Years later, as an adult, the daughter (Judy Palya Loether) went on a quest to learn what had happened to her father. Eventually, through the help of print and broadcast media, she eventually got hold of a copy of the crash report from someone who had obtained it before it became “classified.”
Only, it wasn’t a “crash” report; it was an “accident” report.
The cause of the crash turned out to be negligence in U.S. Air Force maintenance of its B-29 fleet.
Palya’s daughter was ultimately successful in uncovering the facts surrounding her father’s death because of the attention her case received from print and broadcast journalists. However, anyone who looks into the Kennedy assassination is now seemingly a “conspiracy theorist”—a term the CIA coined to counteract critics of the JFK assassination’s Warren Commission’s report and which has ultimately and lumped JFK assassination researchers with the likes of Q-Anon believers, stolen election believers, Holocaust deniers, believers in school shooting “crisis actors,” and so on.
It was negligence that caused Al Palya to lose his life, not anything to do with any “secret mission.” The whole “secret mission” story was concocted as a cover-up to what really happened, in order to falsely justify the need for a “State Secrets” privilege.
But the decision that the government could withhold information due to “State Secrets” privilege was now “black letter law.” Stare Decisis.
That decision needs to be challenged.
The ridiculous claims of “national security” being used to cover up the matters of negligence surrounding the Reynolds/Palya case is similar to the type of obstruction of the Kennedy assassination. However, in the case of the Kennedy assassination, it wasn’t just failure to acknowledge the Secret Service lapses and accidental AR-15 slam-fire head shot, it was the active cover-up (alterations to the Zapruder Film alteration as well as other film and photographic evidence), as well as cover-up of the cover-up of the cover-up from the continued failure to acknowledge the initial events and the ongoing nature of the cover-up.
“National Security” and “State Secrets” privilege needs to be limited to military technical specifications and intelligence sources, and not apply to active cover-up of “errors,” which can be corrected. The “National Security” or “State Secrets” privilege should not be used to further compound “mistakes.” The withholding of “methods” should not include alterations of evidence to which the public has a right to access.
“An error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.”
—Orland Alosius Battista, quoted by President John F. Kennedy
The initial events of Dealey Plaza were “mistakes.” They are forgivable. Not so forgivable are the “errors” of the cover-up, and the ongoing cover-up of the cover-up by the refusal to acknowledge what actually happened in Dealey Plaza.
Not so forgivable are the cover-up, and the cover-up of the cover-up.
That sort of use of the "National Security" or "State Secrets" privilege must stop!
And it begins with the government correcting its "mistakes" related to the Kennedy assassination.
Thank you.
-Denise
Next steps: Mounting legal challenges to get "national security" more narrowly defined so that it only applies to technical specifications, protection of living sources and current methods of intelligence gathering, etc., and not apply to after-the-fact covering up of "errors," mistakes, negligence, illegal behaviors, and the like. If you have any good advice, please you the "Contacts" page to share that with me!