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The ''state secrets privilege'' is a common law rule of evidence that the Federal Government can invoke to prevent materials from being publicly disclosed in civil court proceedings, if the Governmentestablishes that such disclosure would harm the Nation. In the early 1970s, Congress considered including a state secrets provision in the Federal Rules of Evidence, but it ultimately decidednot to include any privileges.1 Although numerous laws govern the handling of classified documents and other information that may implicate state secrets in specific contexts, the state secrets privilege has never been codified in statute. The Supreme Court addressed the state secrets privilege at length for the first (and last) time in United States v. Reynolds,2 a 1953 tort suit brought by widows of civilian engineers who diedin an Air Force plane crash. The Reynolds decision has been criticized as internally contradictory and excessively deferential to the Executive,3 and commentators dispute the extent to which it is followedby lower courts today.4 Nevertheless, it remains the foundational case on the privilege and the starting point for judicial review of privilege claims. As one commentator describes it, the analyticalframework established in Reynolds comprises several basicprinciples: