September 21, 2001: Justice Department Closes Immigration Proceedings to Public, Cites Need for Blanket Secrecy

Michael Creppy, the chief US immigration judge—actually an executive branch official in the Justice Department, the title of “judge” notwithstanding—orders that all deportation hearings be closed to the public, the press, and even family members. Creppy also prohibits immigration court administrators from listing the detainees’ names or cases on public dockets. The reason is not because there is reason to believe any particular detainee is a suspected terrorist. Instead, the administration asserts, national security demands blanket secrecy because terrorist cells might read about the deportation hearings in the press, piece together bits and pieces of information, and in doing so deduce valuable information about the government’s investigation into the 9/11 attacks and terrorism in general. In 2007, author Charlie Savage will write: “Thus, the public would just have to trust that the government had arrested and deported the right people, even though their names were kept a secret and the decision to expel them from the country was made behind closed doors. By invoking the chance that the enemy might detect a pattern in otherwise harmless information, the government would be justified in withholding everything. The implication of its theory was that the public had no right to know anything, no matter how innocuous, because any tidbit of trivial information could potentially be stitched together with other minor bits of information to conceivably provide some useful insight for terrorists.” In separate proceedings, the Detroit Free Press and several New Jersey media organizations will challenge the Justice Department’s decision in court (see August 26, 2002 and October 2, 2002). [Savage, 2007, pp. 94]