Terrorism Lawyer’s Access to Secret Papers Fought by U.S.
By Andrew Harris Feb 11, 2014 1:59 PM ET
Federal prosecutors will fight a judge’s decision to let a defense lawyer see secret foreign intelligence papers that may have led to evidence against his client, the first such ruling in a U.S. terrorism case.
The government filed a notice of intent to appeal yesterday in federal court in Chicago, where U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman last month granted attorney Thomas A. Durkin’s request to see applications for intelligence-gathering submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
The judge, who said she was the first to let a defense attorney see such records, put her ruling on hold today pending the outcome of the appeal.
Durkin represents Adel Daoud of Hillside, Illinois, who was arrested in September 2012 and accused of trying to detonate a bomb outside a downtown Chicago bar. The bomb was a phony, part of a Federal Bureau of Investigation sting operation. Daoud has pleaded not guilty.
The government is coming under increasing scrutiny for surveillance at home and abroad through the National Security Agency’s collection of telephone and Internet metadata, following revelations by former government contractor Edward Snowden about U.S. intelligence-gathering methods.
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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-11/u-s-to-fight-ruling-giving-lawyer-access-to-secret-court-papers.html