Terrorism-related secrecy

A federal judge in New York recently halted enforcement of a controversial section of an anti-terrorism bill that the court found harms First Amendment rights. Plaintiffs to the case included noted activists, journalists and a member of Icelandic parliament who argued the law had a chilling effect.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. has denied a request to order the U.S. government to publicly release photographs and video under the federal Freedom of Information Act of the U.S. military raid that killed Osama bin Laden last May.

U.S. District Judge James Boasberg accepted the CIA’s assertion that release of any photos and video of the body of Osama bin Laden – former leader al-Qaeda – would pose a major threat to national security, and that he would not overturn the agency’s decision to classify the records.

A military judge avoided ruling on whether members of the news media and the public will have access to the testimony about the prison treatment of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing in 2000 which killed 17 Americans. Instead, at Wednesday's pretrial hearing in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the judge ordered the prison camp to unshackle al-Nashiri when he met with his lawyers, making the accused terrorist's testimony unnecessary.

In an effort to address calls for transparency as the trials of accused terrorists again start to move forward at Guantanamo Bay, the Department of Defense has released an updated version of its military commission regulation with new commitments to speed up and open up the way court filings are made available to the public.

A convicted terrorist claiming that the limits on communication he faces while serving a life sentence at a federal penitentiary violate his First Amendment rights can proceed with his lawsuit against the government, the District Court in Colorado has ruled.

The First Amendment protects statements in a “60 Minutes” story about the alleged use of a chicken processing company as a cover for terrorism financing in the United States, a federal court ruled earlier this week.

The U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a federal law that prohibits the “material support” of foreign terrorist organizations, rejecting claims from humanitarian aid groups that the law violated their First Amendment rights of free speech and association.

Michigan’s state health department released documents Wednesday that contained information outlining how funds for H1N1 prevention and treatment programs were used, The Michigan Messenger reported.

A federal judge told Justice Department attorneys that they are abusing the secrecy privilege by uniformly withholding information on why individuals are placed on no-fly lists as suspected terrorists, The New York Times reported.