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Columbia Law School

National Security Law

Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA)

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Cipa Creep: The Classified Information Procedures Act And Its Drift Into Civil National Security Litigation, Ian Macdougall Jan 2014

Cipa Creep: The Classified Information Procedures Act And Its Drift Into Civil National Security Litigation, Ian Macdougall

National Security Law Program

This Note documents an incipient trend in the courts and Congress, which I call "CIPA creep," and investigates its implications for civil national security litigation. CIPA – the Classified Information Procedures Act – governs the use of classified information in federal criminal cases. No comparable statute exists in the civil context, where the judge-made state secrets privilege determines whether litigants may use sensitive government information. The prevailing scholarly and popular accounts hold that this privilege, in the tense post-9/11 security environment, transformed from a narrow evidentiary rule into a non-justiciability doctrine that cedes to executive branch officials the power to …


Issues In Article Iii Courts, Debra A. Livingston Jan 2006

Issues In Article Iii Courts, Debra A. Livingston

Faculty Scholarship

Cases implicating classified information can pose difficult legal issues for Article III courts, and these issues may well grow more complicated and arise more frequently as the global war on terror continues. The manner in which these issues are resolved has profound implications for the national security, for the procedural rights of litigants, and for the public's ability to scrutinize legal proceedings. Indeed, the expanded use of secret evidence in Article III courts may raise questions about the very character of the courts themselves. Is there a point at which the demands placed upon these courts, pushing them in the …