Comment Government Security Arguments Are Often Specious (Score 0) 134
A government attorney can be attracted to making a claim that evidence or reasons for an action need to be withheld to protect secrets of various kinds. Such a claim short-circuits our adversarial legal system by not allowing opposing counsel to explore the evidence or claims being relied on by the government. A judge, rarely having the same facts available to him as opposing counsel, does not have the same ability as opposing counsel to present facts that belie a government attorney's otherwise specious arguments that secrecy is required. A judge can look at the government's claimed facts about the need for secrecy in an in camera review without opposing counsel being present, but a judge's ability and descretion to challenge those facts is limited.
Worse still, the court itself is a political animal where the judges and justices were recommended to their positions for being team players. Fighting a government claim for the need for secrecy is a hard legal battle. (Happily, the lower courts are showing little deference to Team Trump's specious arguments in a lot of cases.)
As a litigious prisoner, I once brought a claim for inadequate cell lighting that was causing me to suffer eye pain during my legal research. When I submitted discovery requests regarding the cell and lighting, an Arizona Assistant Attorney General (Bueler?) argued under U.S. Supreme Court prison cases that the information is privileged against discovery because it could compromise prison security. I, in turn, opposed by arguing under more general cases that a government claim of secrecy fails when the information has already been revealed, and such was the case when the state put me in the cell. The judge ruled in my favor, and I got a dumb-ass simple diagram of the cell.
The case was ultimately dismissed and the dismissal was affirmed on appeal because the pain that I suffered was "anectdotal". Team players are a problem, and Trump might have a few.
Nonetheless, I would suggest that this wind-farm case has enough publicity and importance that the team players might avoid the public embarrassment of being judged team players after a proper argument is brought against the government's arguments for secrecy. Go for it!