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US Supreme Court rejects post-Sept 11 dispute over closed hearings
Washington, May 27: The US Supreme Court today said it will not review government anti-terrorism policies that allowed secret deportation hearings for hundreds of foreigners swept up after the Sept 11 attacks.
Washington, May 27: The US Supreme Court today said it will not review government anti-terrorism policies that allowed secret deportation hearings for hundreds of foreigners swept up after the Sept 11 attacks.
The court declined to hear an appeal from New Jersey newspapers that sought information about people detained in conjunction with antiterrorism investigations.
At issue was a change in policy ordered immediately after the terror attacks in September 2001. The government ordered all immigration hearings closed if the foreigner was a ``special interest'' case. The government alone can decide if a case is of special interest to its war on terrorism.
``The press and the public have an overwhelming interest in knowing how, and how fairly, its government uses the power of detention and deportation,'' lawyers for the newspapers argued to the court.
``That is especially true at this moment, when the government itself has expressly drawn a link between deportation proceedings and the war on terrorism, and has frequently cited the number of non-citizens it has detained as evidence of the investigation's progress,'' they argued.
Many of the immigrants were picked up in New York and New Jersey.
Immigration hearings are generally open, and a federal judge ruled that the government should only be able to close them if individual circumstances warranted that. A court of appeals disagreed and upheld the government policy.
In a separate case testing the same policy, another appeals court ruled the other way.
Bureau Report
At issue was a change in policy ordered immediately after the terror attacks in September 2001. The government ordered all immigration hearings closed if the foreigner was a ``special interest'' case. The government alone can decide if a case is of special interest to its war on terrorism.
``The press and the public have an overwhelming interest in knowing how, and how fairly, its government uses the power of detention and deportation,'' lawyers for the newspapers argued to the court.
``That is especially true at this moment, when the government itself has expressly drawn a link between deportation proceedings and the war on terrorism, and has frequently cited the number of non-citizens it has detained as evidence of the investigation's progress,'' they argued.
Many of the immigrants were picked up in New York and New Jersey.
Immigration hearings are generally open, and a federal judge ruled that the government should only be able to close them if individual circumstances warranted that. A court of appeals disagreed and upheld the government policy.
In a separate case testing the same policy, another appeals court ruled the other way.
Bureau Report