New York Times
April 4, 2003
By PHILIP SHENON
WASHINGTON, April 3 - Several of the nation's largest news organizations
demanded access today to a variety of secret court documents filed
in the
case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in an American
court
with involvement in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Lawyers for the
news organizations said the trial judge's decision to place
dozens of defense and prosecution documents under seal over the
last
several months without advance notice to the public was a violation
of the
First Amendment.
In papers filed in Federal District Court in Alexandria,
Va., where Mr.
Moussaoui is facing trial, the news organizations suggested that
the most
important of the documents involved Mr. Moussaoui's bid to be permitted
to
question Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a suspected member of Al Qaeda who is
in
custody.
Mr. Moussaoui and his court-appointed defense lawyers have
argued that Mr.
bin al-Shibh might help show that Mr. Moussaoui was not involved
in the
2001 attacks. Their request for access to Mr. bin al-Shibh, which
is before
a federal appeals court, has brought proceedings against Mr. Moussaoui
to a
halt for now.
But none of that is clear from the court record in the
case, which the
judge, Leonie M. Brinkema, has largely kept hidden from news organizations
and the public on national security grounds, at the request of the
Justice
Department.
Government officials say federal prosecutors have asked
that Judge Brinkema
seal the court documents involving Mr. bin al-Shibh in the belief
that they
contain classified information that could be of use to Al Qaeda.
Officials
say the department used a similar national-security argument in denying
the
defense request for access to Mr. bin al-Shibh.
The news organizations
said that "the sealing in their entirety
of certain
portions of the record in this action does not strike the correct
balance
between the government's legitimate law enforcement/security interests
and
the public's First Amendment and common law rights of access to judicial
records."
The organizations filing the protest with Judge Brinkema
were ABC News, The
Associated Press, The Hearst Corporation, The New York Times, the
Tribune
Company and The Washington Post, as well as the Reporters Committee
for
Freedom of the Press.
Judge Brinkema asked the Justice Department and defense lawyers to
file
papers responding to the demand of the news organizations. She said
that
after reading the responses, she would decide whether to hold a public
hearing on the matter before issuing a ruling.
A spokesman for the
United States Attorney's office in Alexandria did not
respond tonight to phone calls.
One of Mr. Moussaoui's lawyers, Frank
W. Dunham Jr., the federal public
defender for eastern Virginia, said in an interview that he would
welcome
greater public access to the court record.
"
We recognize that there are national security concerns, and we certainly
don't believe in compromising national security," Mr. Dunham
said, "but I
can't imagine that we would take any position other than that the
trial and
all pretrial proceedings should be public to the maximum extent possible."
