After the crash, the federal government argued that it could not release the details of the crash as a matter of national security so sensitive that even the judges could not be allowed to review the documents. However, the unsealed documents now reveal that the government’s case may have been built on fraud. Lawyers for the heirs of the original lawsuit filers recently filed a new petition asking the Supreme Court to acknowledge the alleged fraud and force the government to pay the heirs of the three victims the money they lost when the Supreme Court overturned a lower court judgment against the Air Force. That judgment, with a half-century of interest, would give the heirs $1.1 million.

If the military did lie to the Supreme Court about the nature of the accident documents, it would cast doubt on the landmark Supreme Court decision. The Reynolds decision effectively established the military and state secrets privilege in national security law. It has been used by the government to withhold information, block private companies from releasing documents in discovery, and has been used by the Bush administration to justify expanding the government’s secrecy and homeland security powers.

The government used the Reynolds precedent to deny relatives of sailors killed on the USS Stark in 1987 by Iraqi missiles a civil trial against the defense systems. The government has also cited ''grave national security concerns'' as its reason for trying to prevent United Airlines from turning over documents in the first lawsuit filed by a family of a victim of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Additionally, the Bush administration uses the Reynolds precedent in many cases in which they argue for secrecy in the war on terrorism.

The current petition is not seeking to overturn Reynolds, but rather to correct the lie. However, the development may serve as a lesson to the public and judges that the courts have failed to maintain proper limits on the government's use of its secrecy powers.