rockymountainnews: Feds eye 'spy files'
A new twist in the Denver police spy files case: amongst the dossiers kept on innocent citizens are 22 files involving secret federal investigations. The contested records have been deleted from those made available to the ACLU while the judge decides whether they will be released.
The secret slipped out when Denver officials turned over all the files to the American Civil Liberties Union and other lawyers who have sued the city claiming the spy files are an illegal violation of people’s civil rights.[...]
Federal Magistrate Judge Craig Shaffer said he will study the 22 files to determine if they involve legitimate criminal investigations, which the ACLU can’t have, or possible violations of citizens’ civil rights, which it can have, or both.
If it’s both, Shaffer said, he’ll have to decide whether civil rights violations outweigh the danger of compromising law enforcement’s criminal investigations.
Meanwhile, after some sparring in the courtroom about who would hand over what, and when, the ACLU handed all the files back to the city, at least temporarily.