Enlarge By Paul J. Richards, AFP/Getty Images The Supreme Court will hear a pair of cases Tuesday that tests a privilege used to shut down litigation. WASHINGTON  In a post-9/11 world, the federal government increasingly has invoked a "state secrets" argument to keep sensitive information out of court, notably in disputes over warrantless surveillance and the secret transfer of prisoners to foreign countries for interrogation. Now, for the first time since the 2001 terrorist attacks and the first since the Supreme Court recognized the state-secrets exemption in 1953, the justices will hear a dispute testing some dimensions of the privilege intended to protect national security. The paired cases to be argued Tuesday involve a long-running, otherwise dry defense-contracting conflict over a canceled stealth aircraft. Yet they offer the justices a rare chance to address the controversial privilege used to shut down litigation. DISPUTE: 1953 law grew from crashed test flight Most broadly at stake is the government's ability to shield information or win dismissal of a case based on a claim that the airing of sensitive material would hurt national security. "We hope the court will take the opportunity to revisit and reform the privilege that has become more important in this era," says Sharon Bradford Franklin, a lawyer with the non-profit Washington, D.C.-based Constitution Project, which submitted a brief siding with the contractors that protests use of the state-secrets privilege. Yet the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a San Francisco-based civil liberties group that has challenged National Security Agency wiretap programs, has entered the dispute (not on either side) to urge the justices to take a limited view and not delve into whether constitutional grounds exists for the state-secret privilege. For years, the larger debate over the state-secrets privilege has played out in lower courts, in Congress and in the Bush and Obama administrations. Democrats. led by Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., have proposed legislation to set uniform procedures for such cases and require judges faced with state-secret claims to review in private evidence that the government says should be shielded. More accountability sought The Obama team generally has carried over Bush administration state-secrets arguments in lower-court cases. But in September 2009, it issued new overall guidelines to try to ensure greater accountability in the use of the privilege. Attorney General Eric Holder said it should be "invoked only when necessary and in the narrowest way possible." One high-profile case related to the issue has just arrived at the Supreme Court, although the justices are not likely to announce until early spring whether they would accept Mohamed v. Jeppesen DataPlan. It was brought by five men who say they were kidnapped by the CIA and flown to other countries by Jeppesen DataPlan, a subsidiary of Boeing, for harsh interrogation, including torture. A deeply split U.S. appeals court dismissed the case on state-secret grounds after the government intervened. The ACLU, which represents the men, filed an appeal last month at the Supreme Court, arguing that the government is improperly using state-secrets privilege "to deny justice to torture victims." Responses from Jeppesen and the U.S. government are due to the court in February. In the dispute justices will hear this week, the paired cases of General Dynamics Corp. v. U.S. and Boeing Co. v. U.S. began with a quarrel over development of the A-12 Avenger aircraft. Unlike in the usual state-secrets situations, where the government is being sued, the government started this case. The Navy contracted in 1988 with General Dynamics and McDonnell Douglas Corp. (now Boeing) to develop the A-12, but after delays and conflicts over costs, terminated the contract for default in 1991 and sought return of more than $1 billion paid. The defense giants brought their own claim, arguing they were stalled by the government's reluctance to turn over secret technology needed for the project. The government said that the main differences centered on costs, rather than access to certain information, yet invoked the state-secrets privilege to prevent disclosure of what it deemed highly sensitive information. Safeguards asserted As the case wended its way through courts for nearly two decades, the companies contended that by raising the state-secrets privilege and limiting access to documents, the government prevented them from proving they were not responsible for delays and should not have to repay the money. Lower courts ruled for the government. General Dynamics and Boeing say that while there are times the state-secrets privilege is legitimately invoked, in this case it was used for a litigation advantage. Department of Justice lawyers, led by acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal, defend the government's use of the state-secrets privilege in the A-12 dispute and insist that sufficient "safeguards against capricious invocation of the state-secrets privilege" exist. No outside groups have joined the government's side. With the contractors, along with the Constitution Project, are business groups including the Chamber of Commerce. They say the federal government should not be able to invoke the privilege to its financial gain. Carter Phillips, who represents the chamber and will argue the case for the two big contractors, said, "What distinguishes this case from others is that the government ... is trying to use the privilege as a mechanism to take away a contractor's ability to defend itself. This is not using it as a shield. 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