The Department of Justice “has properly withheld” docket...
The Department of Justice “has properly withheld” docket information from Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) disclosures to the American Civil Liberties Union for prosecutions in which the government had obtained cellphone tracking data without a warrant and the defendant had…
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been either acquitted or had the charges dismissed, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday (http://1.usa.gov/1kXq2Lw). The court had said in its original 2011 decision in the case that Justice needed to disclose the docket information to the ACLU in cases in which the defendant was convicted (CD Sept 7/11 p6). The court’s 2011 decision did not touch on whether DOJ needed to also disclose that information when the cases ended in acquittal or dismissal. The court now believes Justice could withhold that information in those cases “given the substantial privacy interest individuals have in controlling information concerning criminal charges for which they were not convicted,” said Judge David Tatel in the majority opinion for the three-judge panel. Judge Janice Rogers Brown dissented, noting in her opinion that “the right to be left alone, once forfeited, is gone for good. An individual who is indicted and tried has no privacy interest that can protect the public record of prosecution from disclosure -- even if the ultimate outcome was acquittal or dismissal.” The ACLU believes the D.C. Circuit erred in its majority opinion, said ACLU of the Nation’s Capital Legal Director Arthur Spitzer, who argued the case. “The idea that someone who’s been publicly indicted in federal court has any real privacy interest in that fact seems unrealistic to us,” he said, noting that docket information in those cases is easily searchable over the Internet.