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The Department of Justice is planning to roll out new standards that would make it tougher for the government to unilaterally throw out lawsuits by asserting the state secrets privilege:

The new policy requires agencies, including the intelligence community and the military, to convince the attorney general and a team of Justice Department lawyers that the release of sensitive information would present significant harm to “national defense or foreign relations.” In the past, the claim that state secrets were at risk could be invoked with the approval of one official and by meeting a lower standard of proof that disclosure would be harmful.

….”What we’re trying to do is . . . improve public confidence that this privilege is invoked very rarely and only when it’s well supported,” said a senior department official involved in the review, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the policy had not yet been unveiled. “By holding ourselves to this higher standard, we’re in some way sending a message to the courts. We’re not following a ‘just trust us’ approach.”

….The Justice Department officials said Tuesday that their agency would give regular reports on their use of the state secrets privilege to oversight committees on Capitol Hill and that the attorney general would pass along “credible” allegations of wrongdoing by government agencies or officials to watchdogs at the appropriate agencies, even if the administration had decided to invoke the legal privilege in sensitive cases.

I’m all for this, but unless it’s backed by the force of law we’re still just trusting the government to do the right thing.  Maybe they will, maybe they won’t.  Maybe this administration will and the next one won’t.  Who knows?  So I hope Pat Leahy keeps beavering away on legislation to codify this stuff.  DOJ can’t have any objection to Congress making sure they do what they say they’re going to do anyway, can they?

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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