By Dahlia Lithwick, Slate, January 18, 2011

..the Obama Administration has generally continued to invoke the privilege to dismiss lawsuits in which government actors are on the hook for the Bush-era secret rendition program and warrantless eavesdropping. When the Supreme Court agreed to hear General Dynamics v. United States (consolidated with Boeing v. United States), the first major state secrets case since the Court established the privilege in United States v. Reynolds in 1953, court-watchers hoped the justices would seize this opportunity to clarify the scope of the privilege and the consequences to the government of invoking it.

....the court today seized the opportunity to conduct a rollicking roller-derby smash-up on American contract law. The justices seem to begin and end with the proposition that the state secrets doctrine is uncontroversial. The only question left to them is what to do with the still-squabbling parties to a 20-year old contract dispute over some fancy aircraft.....