The National Security Agency worked behind the scenes to remove a section of a court transcript after suspecting one of its lawyers inadvertently disclosed secret information in a court case over alleged illegal surveillance.
Has the wall of secrecy protecting US intelligence-gathering methods become so severe and repressive that even to acknowledge the redaction of sensitive information from public documents is now thought to be revealing too much?
It seems the United States may be heading in that dark direction following a recent session of the Jewel v. NSA case, in which the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is challenging the NSA’s power to monitor foreign citizens’ US-based communications and social media accounts.
In the course of the ongoing case, which has gained public attention in light of the Snowden revelations, the government told US District Judge Jeffrey White that one of its lawyers may have accidentally spilled the beans on sensitive information, the Daily Caller reported.
US authorities wrote a letter to Judge White asking him to remove in camera the classified information from the transcripts, without notifying the public to the change. White not only ignored the government’s request to delete portions of the transcript, but informed the plaintiffs’ attorneys of the government’s request, allowing them to respond in kind.
http://rt.com/usa/179260-nsa-court-delete-testimony/
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