Classified records

Asking a court to keep certain documents secret must be done publicly, a San Diego federal judge ordered June 3 in a corruption case involving former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham. If a party wishes to file papers in secret, U.S. District Judge Larry Burns said, it must ask to do so openly to give the public the opportunity to oppose the secrecy, citing precedent from the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

Judge Marilyn G. Diamond gave the New York Police Department 60 days to turn over a database of hundreds of thousands of street stops to civil rights advocates.

The database detailed the locations and other details about each stop-and-frisk that has occurred since 2006. The NYPD asked the judge to dismiss the case because the records also divulged personal information about the officers who made each stop.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., has reaffirmed the need for lawyers representing detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay to have full access to government information on their clients. The full court declined to reconsider a decision that a three-member panel of the court issued last year ordering the government to release nearly all its information on the 275 detainees being held without charges.

It's been eight years in the making, but the much anticipated Public Interest Declassification Board has finally released its report to the president urging a series of steps to reform the process of declassifying historical records.

Classified documents admitted into evidence in the trial of two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee accused of mishandling government secrets will be stripped of their classification markings, Judge T.S. Ellis, III ruled Nov. 8. Classifications currently stamped on the documents including "secret," "top secret" and "NOFORN" create "unfair prejudice" against the two former AIPAC officials, Steven J.