Here's a line of thought I had that I shared with @DanConway:
A morality of force and government and militaries must inexorably elaborate how to cope with the dangers of state secrets privileges. Comey's langauge is a great example. State secrets become political tools. It's inevitable. How do the people more perfectly ensure the freedom of the state against corruption via the tool of state secrets? Should the Justice Department be capable of hiding its actions from Congress and the President? Should someone like the speaker of the Chair of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee not be barred by something like state secrets privileges?
And here is an opinion I found on state secrets privileges:
The state secrets privilege undermines the very idea of an independent judiciary; contradicts the core idea of judicial review, which is independent judges making independent evaluations of all of the facts; and essentially allows the executive branch to dictate to the federal courts what cases they can and can’t hear.
Defenders of the state secrets privilege justify it with a “greater good” argument—injustice in the individual case is outweighed by the greater good of protecting national security. But this argument ignores another “greater good” argument: that the greater good is actually served by denying the executive a trump card that would allow it to cover up its abuses of power.
