Stephen J. Field Quotes
It may be stated as a general principal, that public policy forbids the maintenance of any suit in a court of justice, the trial of which would inevitably lead to the disclosure of matters which the law itself regards as confidential.
This is the doctrine which allows the government to in effect quash any lawsuit which it claims will disclose any national secrets. This protects information that if released would harm the country or its security posture. At the same time, it allows an administration to terminate embarrassing lawsuits or ones that might uncover government illegality, by claiming that there will be damage to the nation. It is often difficult to separate damage to the nation from damage to a particular administration and government.
Stephen J. Field, 1816-1899, U. S. Supreme Court Justice, Quoted in Political Science Quarterly, Spring 2005
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
Once he assumed the Presidency however, he flip flopped on this issue and approved prosecution of the Drake case and other whitle blowers. At the beginning of his second term, Edward Snowden, tried to get his superiors to do something about the massive surveillance of the American Public that the intelligence agencies were carrying out in secret. When Snowden was ignored, he went public through two newspapers. Obama castigated him for revealing that the government officials had lied and were operating a secret spying and eavesdropping system monitoring virtually every American. The Obama Administration chased him around the world trying to get him extradited for criminal trial in the United States.
At the time Jay was engaged in secret counterintelligence operations in upstate New York and some material had been leaked by members of the Congress.
The issue was still not decided by the beginning of the 21st Century except that a certain amount of public disclosure was required if the company raised funds by selling stock to the public, but there were some giant corporations that were private and exercised huge power and influence and yet whose operations were secret.
At the time there was no Secrecy & Classification System nor any laws enforcing secrecy or confidentiality. However there was no freedom of information laws of expectations even on the part of journalists. This was the first Freedom of Information policy of the American government. Some politicians were more open than others but there was no national, governmental before this. There were however leakers and whistleblowers though the terms were not in use. Note that Roosevelt herein created the first whistle blower protection—himself.
Stephen Johnson Field was an American jurist. He was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court from May 20, 1863, to December 1, 1897, the second longest tenure of any justice. Prior to this appointment, he was the fifth Chief Justice of California.
