Secrecy News, Federation of American Scientists

11/04/03

Supreme Court Asked to Review Secret Case

By Steven Aftergood

In one of the stranger artifacts of the post-9/11 legal environment, the U.S. Supreme Court is being asked to review a lower court ruling in a case that remains almost entirely secret.

The very existence of the case was never supposed to have become public. The name of the plaintiff in the case (a "Middle Eastern man"), the identity of the defendants, the alleged offense, the case number, every court filing and every court ruling -- were all sealed from public view. Only a few minor details were inadvertently disclosed due to a clerical error by an appeals court clerk.

The legitimacy of this nearly absolute secrecy has been challenged in a heavily censored petition to the Supreme Court, filed last June and still pending.

"The Court should grant [the petition], not only to preserve and protect the public's common-law and First Amendment rights to know, but also to reinforce those rights in a time of increased national suspicion about the free flow of information and debate," wrote public defender Kathleen M. Williams.

A copy of the redacted petition for writ of certiorari in the case M.K.B. v. Warden, et al, is posted as a pdf.

The background to this peculiar case was elucidated by Warren Richey in "Secret 9/11 Case Before High Court," Christian Science Monitor, October 30.