The US government must reveal the names of those held in the investigation of the September 11 attacks, a federal judge has ruled, rejecting claims terrorists could use the information to plot new crimes.
The US Justice Department could not justify a blanket policy of secrecy about more than 1,000 people arrested since the attacks, US District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled yesterday.
The US government has 15 days to provide the names.
The ruling is a major setback for the government, which is only beginning to defend its post-September 11 security and anti-terrorism measures in court. The Justice Department did not immediately say whether it would appeal.
"The government has used its arrest power to detain individuals as part of an investigation that is widespread in its scope and secrecy," Kessler wrote.
"Unquestionably, the public's interest in learning the identities of those arrested and detained is essential to verifying whether the government is operating within the bounds of the law."
The judge said there might be exceptions to the release of names, if an individual detainee objected or if the government could show that separate court orders prohibited release of information about someone held as a material witness in a terrorism investigation.
She gave the Justice Department 15 days to back up its claim that it could withhold information about material witnesses. A material witness allegedly has substantial information about a crime but is not himself charged. Such witnesses may be arrested, but may not be held indefinitely.
"The decision is a complete repudiation of the attorney general's policy of rounding up hundreds of individuals in secrecy," said Kate Martin, whose Centre for National Security Studies is among civil rights and human rights organisations that sued the government for information about the secret arrests.
"The opinion is a vindication of the basic principle that you can't have secret arrests, that secret arrests are undemocratic."
Those arrested are all apparently foreign citizens, and many have been charged with immigration violations.
The Justice Department has said nearly 1,200 people were swept up by federal, state and local authorities following the September 11 attacks. Most already have been deported.
AP