President Obama vowed last week to rein in the use of a legal privilege that allows the administration to discard lawsuits that involve "state secrets," promising that a new policy is in the works that will quell criticism by civil libertarians.

But hours after Obama's speech laid out a "delicate balance" on national security, his Justice Department was criticized by a federal judge in California overseeing a case that has delved deeper than any other into one of the government's most highly classified data-gathering programs.