Covert court proceedings must end

[babylonsister]

Covert court proceedings must end

UNION-TRIBUNE

August 8, 2007

The Bush administration's zeal for government secrecy and the pressing dangers it entails are on frightful display in the expanding Randy “Duke” Cunningham bribery case. Thus far, the U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego has succeeded in an unprecedented level of closed proceedings, with critical testimony placed under seal after arbitrarily being stamped “classified,” and important legal matters being determined behind closed doors.

With the public, the news media and even the defense lawyers utterly shut out of the government's judicial maneuvering, the potential for abuse is enormous. This is why a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals must step in and open the Justice Department's clandestine dealings to public scrutiny.

This essential mission rests in the hands of Judges Alex Kozinski, Dorothy Nelson and Johnnie Rawlinson, who this week held a closed hearing in which government lawyers alone were allowed to make their case for continuing the criminal prosecution in secret. Defense lawyers were not permitted to hear the arguments offered by the U.S. Attorney's Office, much less rebut them.

When the three-judge panel opened the courtroom doors and allowed lawyers for The San Diego Union-Tribune to offer a brief plea for judicial openness, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Ford even asked the court to order the newspaper's legal filings to be kept from the public. Such stunning arrogance in pursuit of covert judicial proceedings in a case with no identifiable national security considerations is truly appalling.

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http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/op-ed/editorial1/20070808-9999-lz1ed8top.html