Pleading State Secrets not (yet) the 5th

Well, well, well. After having observed that The Regime's claim that state secrets prevented the courts from hearing a complaint about AT&T--a complaint about a very public and certain set of actions-- we see news today thay the courts just might agree. At least at the level of the circuit court.

Glenn Greenwald reports (no sign in the media generally-- the original story wasn't covered much either) that the court took public statements by The Regime and AT&T as the basis of its decision and found:

"the very subject matter of this action is hardly a secret. As described above, public disclosures by the government and AT&T indicate that AT&T is assisting the government to implement some kind of surveillance program" . . . [and] "significant amounts of information about the government's monitoring of communication content and AT&T's intelligence relationship with the government are already non-classified on in the public record."

Duh. Of course, there is an immediate appeal out (not of any verdict, mind you, but of the decision just to hear the case), which will probably wind up before the Supreme Kangaroos, so don't count any eggs, yet-- certainly not over the phone.