Public interest and media organizations this week appealed to the Supreme Court to stop the near-total secrecy surrounding the five-month detention of a Florida waiter as part of what the federal government claims to be a terrorism-related investigation. They did this through a friend of the court or an amicus brief. The case has been handled with unusual secrecy (see Watcher, Nov. 17). The existence of the case is known outside the court system only because documents identifying the case were inadvertently and temporarily filed in the public docket and a reporter discovered the case.

The accidental destruction of documents justifying the federal government’s eight-year investigation into a former University of South Florida professor raises questions about whether the government will be allowed to proceed in a case hailed as a key part of the war against terrorism.