Secrecy

A United States military judge has sealed the plea agreement in the first conviction at Guantanamo Bay under the Obama administration.

Judge and Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Nancy J. Paul sealed the plea agreement at the request of the government and with the consent of the defense attorneys in the case of Ibrahim al-Qosi, a native Sudanese and former cook for al-Qaida. Last month, al-Qosi pled guilty to conspiracy and material support for terrorism. He has been detained at Guantanamo for over eight years.

The Broward Bulldog reported last week that two of the three finalists for a U.S. attorney post in southern Florida have been involved in controversies regarding court records -- one for altering a docket in apparent violation of state law and another who helped prosecute a secret case in the wake of Sept. 11.

The Virginia Supreme Court has withdrawn a controversial proposal that would have automatically withheld the identities of jurors in all criminal cases, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported.

Five Utah news organizations asked a federal judge to unseal records Monday that relate to the highly publicized kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart, the Associated Press reported.

A Washington state judge overseeing a criminal case against another judge excluded the press from the courtroom during deposition testimony Monday, The News Tribune in Tacoma reported.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that the Justice Department will move to restrict use of the state secrets privilege and laid out new procedures that will “provide greater accountability and ensure the state secrets privilege is invoked only when necessary and in the narrowest way possible.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C. this week decided to exclude the public from oral arguments concerning the legality of military detentions, The Blog of Legal Times reports.  

The Obama Administration’s approach to transparency in government is, thus far, only a slight improvement over the Bush Administration’s policies, reports OpenTheGovernment.org in its annual Secrecy Report Card.

In the midst of an extensive overhaul of its child protection agency, New Jersey has announced it will no longer disclose detailed case reports outlining its supervision of children who die from abuse or neglect.

A federal judge in California conducted an entire trial this week behind closed doors, the Los Angeles Times reports.