- WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The
U.S. Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Bush administration to keep secret
the names and other basic details about hundreds of people questioned and
detained or arrested after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
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- Without comment, the top court refused to hear an appeal
by civil liberties and other groups challenging the secret arrests and
detentions for violating the Freedom of Information Act and constitutional
free-speech rights under the First Amendment.
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- The justices let stand a U.S. appeals court ruling that
disclosing the names could harm national security and help "al Qaeda
in plotting future terrorist attacks or intimidating witnesses in the present
investigation."
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- Although the high court stayed out of the dispute involving
the names of those detained, it has agreed to hear other cases arising
from the administration's war on terror.
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- Those cases involve the president's power to detain American
citizens captured abroad and declared "enemy combatants," and
whether foreign nationals can use American courts to challenge their incarceration
at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
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