And we don't want to know

La Belle sends along this link.

MIAMI – It's the case that doesn't exist. Even though two different federal courts have conducted hearings and issued rulings, there has been no public record of any action. No documents are available. No files. No lawyer is allowed to speak about it. Period.

Yet this seemingly phantom case does exist - and is now headed to the US Supreme Court in what could produce a significant test of a question as old as the Star Chamber, abolished in 17th-century England: How far should a policy of total secrecy extend into a system of justice?

I'd have to think a while on the question of "should", but I know the answer to the question of "does": very.

And that is farther than we imagine, I imagine.

Here's a link to a May 2003 article titled "Federal Court in Florida Hides Cases from Public" stemming from a drug trafficking case. And here's a list of the secret trials judges on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review. There's the Iyman Faris aka Mohammed Rauf case I posted on a bit earlier.

There may also be some other strange cases being heard that do not involve foreign intelligence surveillance per se. At least that's what I've been led to believe by a source I cannot divulge. (Oooh, just like the investigative reporters and the spy guys.) And they may be about things we ought to know. Like possible CIA involvement in human genetic experiments. Of course, if the research originated with the Nazi government, I suppose it could technically fall into the foreign intelligence category.

Perhaps you think it was only the Nazi rocket scientists we imported rather than put on trial.

....but hey, you believe what you want....you will anyway.