Melissa Goodman an attorney in the ACLU’s National Security Program, discusses the U.S. military’s expanded role in spying on Americans, how the FBI and DoD have used hundreds of thousands of National Security Letters (NSL’s) to circumvent the law to that end, how NSL recipients have been gagged from speaking out, the Supreme Court’s decision to decline to hear a torture case on the grounds that it would expose state secrets, how the FISA court’s location inside the Dept. of Justice building symbolizes their relationship and how the government’s claims of “State Secrets Privilege” has been used to cover-up their lies since it’s first use over 50 years ago.
MP3 here. (32:47)
Melissa Goodman is a Staff Attorney on the ACLU’s national security project and litigates cases concerning surveillance, excessive government secrecy, torture and detention, and the freedoms of speech and association. Most recently, she has been counsel in the ACLU’s lawsuits challenging warrantless NSA surveillance, the Patriot Act, the government’s practice of ideological exclusion, and the CIA’s abduction and detention of Khaled El-Masri, a victim of the CIA’s practice of “extraordinary rendition.” Goodman is a graduate of New York University College of Arts and Science, and New York University Law School.
Great interview! Orwellian though. Freedom- it was fun while it lasted!
She makes me proud to be an attorney. But the Supreme Court and the U.S. Dept. of Justice has sure deteriorated.