In a pair of simultaneous deliberations occurring in Washington D.C. this week, the Justice Department is attempting to shape how many of its secrets are revealed to the public, and how much of the public's secrets it can collect.

the DoJ has announced a new process for determining whether or not to assert the state secrets privilege, and a established new set of guidelines and standards it will employ when it does decide to make a state secrets claim.  In a statement, Attorney General Eric Holder said that the goal of the new standards is to ensure that the government claims the state secrets privilege "only when necessary and in the narrowest way possible."

California's Supreme Court just ruled that defendants charged with DUI crimes can challenge the reliability of breathalyzer tests.

The ruling is a helpful hiccup for Californians and visitors charged with driving under the influence.

The Supreme Court put out a few noteworthy decisions yesterday, covering issues ranging from postconviction DNA testing to age discrimination in the workplace. In one of the key 5-4 rulings, the Court said convicts had no Due Process right under the Constitution to access the state's evidence for DNA testing. The five justices felt that, considering the fact that federal law and 46 states' statutes already cover access to DNA evidence, it was best left to the states to deal with that postconviction issue.

In another close ruling (with the typically liberal-leaning justices in the minority), the Court held that a plaintiff bringing a federal law age discrimination claim must prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that age was the "but-for" cause of the challenged adverse employment action. The ruling noted that the age discrimination statute's language did not track that of Title VII, which deals with other types of discrimination (race, sex, religion, etc.). As a result, age discrimination claims will be gauged under a more scrutinizing light for the plaintiffs, as compared to Title VII.

In a decision that was unusual both for its holding and for the majority that created it, the US Supreme Court has restricted the situations in which police officers may search the vehicle of a suspect who has been detained in a patrol car and poses no immediate threat to the officers.

The case, Arizona v. Gant, involved a traffic stop where police arrested the driver of the vehicle, Rodney Gant, for driving on a suspended license, handcuffed him and locked him in a patrol car.  They then searched the car and found cocaine and drug paraphernalia.