Judge orders NYC to release documents (arrests of hundreds of protesters at 2004 Rep. Convention)

[Kadie]

Judge orders NYC to release documents
By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer
18 minutes ago



NEW YORK - A judge on Monday rejected the city's effort to keep secret most of the files and videotapes documenting the arrests of hundreds of protesters at the 2004 Republican National Convention.

U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV repeatedly criticized the city's reasoning for its requests, saying that there was little factual support, or that they lacked common sense.

For instance, he rejected the city's arguments that some documents needed to be secret merely because they contain information that is unreliable or subject to misinterpretation.

"The mere fact that a given document does not provide the reader with a full picture does not make it unreliable," he wrote. "Additionally, the city gives the general public very little credit when it contends that readers will be unable to grasp that the information contained in these documents might be incomplete or inaccurate."

The New York Civil Liberties Union, which had brought the lawsuit, said it would not immediately release the information because the city may appeal.

More than 1,800 people were arrested at the four-day convention at Madison Square Garden, where President Bush accepted his party's nomination for a second term in office.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070123/ap_on_re_us/convention_arrests_1

[barbtries]

1. those arrests in NYC,

like Cindy Sheehan's arrest at last year's state of the union, were outrageous.the whole travesty should be on every news channel and should be written up in every newspaper. it seems clear as a bell who the bushies want with their invasions of privacy: political enemies. to hell with terrorists - no terrorists as scary as they are anyhow.

episodes like this demonstrate in real time for real people what the bush administration's policies spell for people

[beltanefauve]

2. I was there

and "preventatively" arrested while exercising my First Amendment rights and breaking no laws and ordinances. Of all my friends and family, the ones who were most horrified by this were my friends from the Czech Republic. It was all too reminiscent of their lives under the old Soviet Union.

I'm happy to see this recent judicial order, but all the cops I spoke to during that time kept saying, "We had our orders "from the top"". The question still hasn't been answered as to how far up the top that order went.