Federal Appeals Court Authorizes Secret Arrests

NEW YORK - On June 17, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the government broad authority to withhold the names of hundreds of non-citizens detained in the United States in the post September 11 sweeps. The case, Center for National Security Studies v. DOJ, was on appeal from a federal district court in Washington, D.C.

The Court concludes that “many of the detainees had links to terrorism” and therefore that public access to any of their names could reasonably interfere with the government’s ongoing efforts to fight the war against terrorism. But as Judge Tatel notes in his dissent, the majority opinion gives “uncritical deference” to the government’s “vague, poorly explained” arguments on the dangers of revealing the names. It also gives short shrift to the public’s interest in knowing whether the government violated the detainees’ constitutional rights.

“The Court’s decision demonstrates the dangers of unrestrained deference to executive authority,” said Elisa Massimino, Director of the Lawyers Committee’s Washington, D.C. office. In its eagerness to defer to the executive, the Court contradicts the findings of the DOJ’s own Office of the Inspector General—which made clear earlier this month that the government’s post September 11 detention policy was haphazard and that there was little evidence to connect many of the detainees to terrorist activity. By endorsing secret arrests - even in cases with no demonstrated connection to terrorism - the Court allows the DOJ to escape the kind of democratic accountability that the Freedom of Information Act was designed to ensure.