Secrecy

A federal court today will consider two newspapers’ request to release documents related to the 2001 “Amerithrax” investigations.

The Supreme Court today declined to accept review of an appellate court ruling that has allowed all records in a federal employment discrimination case to be hidden from the public for seven years.

The Court offered no explanation for its refusal to accept the case, New York Law Publishing Company v. Doe.

A federal judge presiding over the prosecution of Thomas Kontogiannis, a friend of former Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham, released a previously-secret brief last week in which he criticized government prosecutors for “mischaracteriz[ing] substantial, relevant portions of the record” in their filings before an appellate court.

The brief was unsealed over vigorous government objections.

An Illinois state prosecutor is refusing to allow public access to search warrants and related documents, despite an opinion from the state attorney general making clear that the documents are public records, the Belleville News-Democrat reported.

The Navy is now instructing its personnel who classify records to consider ways they might group ordinarily unclassified records together to qualify as a compilation that could be considered classified -- a practice called classification by compilation.

The creative thinking at the Navy abounds -- shame it's being harnessed in ways to keep truly unclassified (and thus, innocuous) information from the citizens of the country it serves, rather than, say, working to actually serve the public.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press joined other open government groups Tuesday protesting the lack of transparency and accountability in legislative proposals giving the Treasury Department emergency powers in response to the current financial market crisis.

In light of last week's crisis on Wall Street, Congress is considering emergency legislation aimed at giving the Treasury Department broader powers. But the bill would mean that some decisions by the Treasury Secretary could not be challenged in court.  The language in the bill has spawned concern from some Congressional leaders.

Faced with spreading criticism, the mayor of Buffalo agreed Thursday to restore basic crime details that have vanished from the police computer that reporters use.

A federal judge in New York decided Tuesday not to release the grand jury testimony of a crucial witness in Ethel Rosenberg's 1950s espionage case, although other related witness transcripts will be made public, The New York Times reported.

A lawyer investigating a grand jury leak turned to Pennsylvania state legislative staffers to get the cell phone numbers of at least eight reporters already subpoenaed in the case, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.

Senate Minority Leader Robert J. Mellow said it was a routine constituent service for his staff to help attorney Sal Cognetti find cell numbers of reporters subpoenaned in an investigation involving his client.