United States Second Circuit

Dismissal of an action by the wife and children of a covert-status former CIA employee, following the district court's exclusion from evidence of classified information covered by the state-secrets privilege, is affirmed where: 1) plaintiffs' rights of access to the courts were not compromised by the government's refusal to provide plaintiffs' counsel with secure facilities that would allow counsel to prepare an opposition to the government's assertion of the state-secrets privilege as plaintiffs have no right to use material that is alleged by the government to contain state secrets in order to participate in the district court's review of the bona fides of the government's allegation; and 2) plaintiffs have established no infringement of their right to communicate with counsel.

Appellate Information

• Decided 08/05/2009
• Published 08/05/2009

Judges

• SACK, Circuit Judge:, Before:  SACK and PARKER, Circuit Judges, and COTE, District Judge.

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Mark S. Zaid, Mark S. Zaid, P.C., Washington, DC, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Sarah S. Normand, Assistant United States Attorney (Michael J. Garcia, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Neil M. Corwin, Assistant United States Attorney, of counsel), New York, NY, for Defendants-Appellees.