A federal judge restricted access to the recordingsto protect innocent people from being tied to terrorists.
By DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN
Published September 13, 2003
TAMPA - The contents of the government's secretly recorded tapes, being used in the terrorism case against fired University of South Florida professor Sami Al-Arian and three others, can be disclosed only to select people before trial, a federal judge ruled Friday.
In the interest of protecting innocent people from being tied to terrorists, U.S. District Judge James Moody granted the government's request that the contents of the surveillance intercepts not be put into the public domain.
Moody limited access to information to some lawyers, defendants, interpreters, FBI agents, law clerks, paralegals and secretaries. They are barred from discussing the contents of the intercepts and could face legal sanctions for violating the restriction.
Prosecutors had asked that the surveillance intercepts, while declassified, be distributed only to defendants and their defense teams.
Al-Arian and three other men were arrested in February on charges they supported and raised money for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group considered responsible for more than 100 deaths.
Prosecutors had feared the conversations would end up on the Internet, or in the trunk of a car in the Middle East, possibly divulging surveillance techniques and linking innocent parties to terrorists.
Al-Arian, acting as his own counsel, argued that the request would impede his constitutional rights and possibly scare away potential witnesses. He said he feared that if he contacted those talking on the tapes to clarify the context of their conversations and had to warn them of possible sanctions if they talked to anyone else about the contents of the tapes, that it would have a "chilling" effect.
Moody said he saw that the reaction as a "remote" possibility.
"I think people might be chilled by this case," Moody said. "They'll really be chilled if their names are disclosed."
Moody said that all tapes must be turned back over to the government when the case is over.
