Detainees' Lawyers Encounter Secrecy

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) - Lawyers for people arrested for questioning in the terrorism investigation are using a variety of legal tactics to try to chip away at the unprecedented secrecy surrounding the detentions.

Although hundreds of detainees have been released since the attacks, the Justice Department says 326 people remain in custody as part of the sweeping terrorism investigation launched after Sept. 11, most of them in New Jersey jails.

In the latest lawsuit filed on their behalf, civil rights groups and three New Jersey publications are seeking a ban on secret court hearings for detainees. The suit against the federal government was filed Wednesday.

"America and Americans have a long history of distrust and disdain for secret proceedings," said Ed Barocas, legal director of the Newark chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union. "What transpires in court is public property."

The suit was filed by the ACLU chapter and the New York-based Center For Constitutional Rights on behalf of the New Jersey Law Journal and North Jersey Media Group, publisher of The Record of Hackensack and the Herald News of West Paterson. Reporters at the papers who tried to cover hearings involving detainees were barred from courtrooms, along with the rest of the public.