The Bush administration asked the Supreme Court to let it keep all its arguments secret in a case involving an immigrant's challenge of his treatment after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Mohamed Kamel Bellahouel wants the court to consider whether the government acted improperly by secretly jailing him after the attacks and keeping his legal fight secret.
He was among hundreds of foreigners detained after the hijackings. The government has refused to release names and other information on them, citing national security concerns.
This case is perhaps the most egregious recent example of an alarming trend toward excessive secrecy in the federal courts, particularly in cases that bear even a tangential connection to the events of Sept. 11, 2001.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, a voluntary association of reporters and editors that works to defend First Amendment rights, requested that the Supreme Court intervene to reverse a lower court ruling and clarify that the public has a constitutional right of access to federal habeas corpus proceedings and records.
The press and public might never have learned of this case at all but for an inadvertent error by a clerk at the court of appeals. According to newspaper accounts, a clerk at the Eleventh Circuit mistakenly listed the proceeding on a public oral argument calendar and displayed it on the federal courts’ electronic access system, prompting a nationally published newspaper story.
It is well established that courts must make findings to support closing proceedings or to keep documents secret (under seal). Yet the Eleventh Circuit court here made no finding at all to support the secrecy order, the court did not even enter an order to seal so there would be no record at all. It simply adopted a practice of sealing all pleadings and closing all hearings.
The court’s handling of the case violates the established law, that the public and press have a right to attend civil judicial proceedings relating to the incarceration or release of prisoners.
The lower courts conducted this case with unacceptable secrecy. An now the Bush Administration wants unprecedented secrecy as the Supreme Court reviews the lower courts handling of this case.
Help take our country back form the most secretive Administration ever by joining the $100 Revolution. now.

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