even at the expense of damage to the plaintiff. The defendant is allowed freedom of action because his own interests, or those of the public, require it, and because social policy will best be served by permitting it. The privilege is bounded by current ideas of what will most effectively promote the general welfare. The question of "privilege" as a defense arises almost exclusively in connection with intentional torts. Negligence is a matter of risk and probability of harm; and where the likelihood of injury to the plaintiff is relatively slight, the defendant will necessarily be allowed greater latitude than where the harm is intended, or substantially certain to follow. It is the bare value of the respective interests involved and the extent of the harm from which the act is intended to protect the one as compared with that which it is intended to cause to the other which determines the existence or nonexistence of the privilege. The relative social value given to an interest which the defendant seeks to further can affect the nature and extent of a privilege. Occasionally, the defendant may act at his peril if he makes a mistake of fact or law; at other times, an actor is justified in acting on the basis of what the facts reasonably appear to be. At other times, the defendant is justified so long as he was acting in good faith. Or, the privilege may be regarded as absolute in the sense that the court will not permit an inquiry into motive or purpose, since this could result in subjecting the honest person to harassing litigation and claims. When no inquiry is permitted into motive or purpose, it is sometimes said that defendant has an absolute privilege; when the defendant can act in either good or bad faith, with impunity, it is more properly called "immunity" rather than "privilege". Judiciary Hearing, 2008 Many commentators have alleged government misuse of secrecy in the wake of the Supreme Court decision in the case of Reynolds. Senator Leahy in his opening remarks for the Senate Judiciary Committee's February 13, 2008, hearing on the State Secrets Privilege called the Third Circuit's decision in Herring v. United States "a little mystifying". The hearing featured testimony from several experts in the field of government privilege. Carl J. Nichols Testimony of Carl J. Nichols, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Department of Justice Civil