An invitation to secrecy.

Byline: The Register-Guard

A 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel employed Orwellian logic last week in dismissing a lawsuit against the Bush administration's secret surveillance program. Without ruling on the program's legality, a majority of the three-judge panel said the ACLU lacked the standing to sue because it could not show it had been harmed by the surveillance. Such logic puts secret domestic spying programs beyond the reach of citizens and the courts - if the surveillance is secret, after all, people have no way of knowing whether they've been spied upon.

The Terrorist Surveillance Program, operated by the National Security Agency, intercepts communications between Americans and people overseas suspected of terrorist involvement. For five years, the surveillance was done without review by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, established in 1978 to grant warrants for domestic wiretaps. The Justice Department claims to have placed the program under the court's jurisdiction, but the Bush administration continues to assert that it has the right to conduct warrantless domestic surveillance.

Under the court's reasoning, no one would ever have standing to challenge such a program. Unless plaintiffs can prove their conversations were intercepted, they lack standing to sue - even though their inability to offer such proof results from the administration's refusal to provide information about the program. Seldom has any court issued a broader invitation to more government secrecy.