Views from windows and a poem

I’m still testing my camera, so here’s a picture looking out my office window towards the Prudential

and here’s a picture from the meeting room down the hall looking at part of the West Village here at NU with the Museum of Fine Arts in the background.

 Here’s a better picture of the Museum which is going through renovations:

And since it’s Friday, here’s a poem:

The person I see is such a stranger
With such a baleful stare and evil look
That I get in the mood to kill
Though I notice it’s a mirror there.

But it’s a state secret

Via KD, it seems the CIA lied about ‘state secrets’ and the court found out. The judge was not happy:

The judge also criticized CIA Director Leon Panetta, saying he’s given conflicting accounts about what should be revealed in the case. The ruling led to the unsealing Monday of more than 200 unclassified versions of classified filings in the 13-year-old case.

“The court does not give the government a high degree of deference because of its prior misrepresentations regarding the state secrets privilege in this case,” Lamberth ruled.

…

Horn sued Brown and Huddle in 1994, seeking monetary damages for violations of his civil rights because of the alleged wiretapping.

Tenet filed an affidavit in 2000 asking that the case against Brown be dismissed because he was a covert agent whose identity must not be revealed in court. Lamberth granted the CIA’s request and threw out the case against Brown in 2004.

But Lamberth found out last year that Brown’s cover had been lifted in 2002, even though the CIA continued to file legal documents saying his status was covert. The judge found that the CIA intentionally misled the court and reinstated the case against Brown.

In fact the judge was so upset that he decided he could order that an individual had to be given security clearance back in August. This is important, since up to now only the executive branch has been allowed to do that.

The US settled for $3 million dollars. There’s more here.

Remember this when you look at other ‘state secrets’ cases: are there really state secrets involved or do the people just not want to be prosecuted or embarrassed? Also remember that the original case that articulated the state secrets provision involved a case where there really weren’t any state secrets involved, the claim was made to cover negligence.