-Caveat Lector- Fla. Judge Blocks Access to Reports By RICHARD CARELLI .c The Associated Press WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge in Florida has cut off public access nationwide to the financial disclosure reports all federal judges are required to file each year, an unprecedented move that is drawing strong rebukes from open-records advocates. U.S. District Judge William J. Zloch ordered the moratorium out of concern that posting the reports on the Internet would mean ``universal and anonymous access, raising security issues,'' said federal courts spokeswoman Karen Redmond. Since 1979, federal judges and other high-ranking federal officials have been required by federal law to report all stock holdings and other family assets within broad ranges of estimated worth. They also must list gifts and other reimbursements. Home addresses, telephone numbers and other information raising obvious privacy issues need not be listed. The Administrative Office of U.S. Courts routinely has made copies of reports available, for a fee, to anyone who requests them after requesters identify themselves and disclose their occupation. The action by Zloch, in an order issued last week in Fort Lauderdale, came after a news organization, APBnews.com, requested the 1998 financial disclosure reports of some 1,600 active and semiretired federal judges and magistrates as part of a project that would make all of them available on the Internet. Zloch's order blocking public release of all reports is temporary - designed to give a committee of judges time to discuss the ramifications of an Internet posting, Redmond said, and could end as soon as Friday. But that did not appease some critics. ``It's appalling. It's basically the courts saying, 'We favor access as long as it's not meaningful,''' said Gregg Leslie, acting executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. ``This judge apparently does not appreciate the interests behind access, the importance of public accountability,'' he said. Paul McMasters of the Freedom Forum said: ``The security of judges is no minor matter but neither is full and free access to information about public officials. I hope the federal judiciary will quickly reconsider this hold on the flow of information.'' Mike Casey of the Environmental Working Group, which monitors potential conflicts of interest by judges, also was critical. ``After all the revelations about stock conflicts and anti-environmental junkets, you'd think the judiciary would clean up its act instead of trying to bully reporters into not informing the public,'' Casey said. Rep. Howard Coble, R-N.C., a House Judiciary Committee member, voiced little sympathy for the judges. ``Any public official who draws a salary from taxpayers' money should have complete and open financial disclosure, and that includes posting on the Internet,'' he said. The Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington-based research group, posts on the Internet financial disclosure forms of all members of Congress. Zloch is on the 26-judge U.S. Judicial Conference, which is chaired by Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and makes federal court policy. Zloch heads its 15-member financial disclosure committee. Redmond said the committee will meet Friday. ``I can't imagine this moratorium will last much beyond the committee meeting,'' she said, but added that she could not ``say with certainty'' when the committee will take definitive action. The Ethics in Government Act of 1978, as amended last year, gives federal courts the right to withhold any report temporarily for security reasons. The amendment allows a report to be ``redacted,'' or censored, ``only to the extent necessary to protect the individual who filed the report'' and only ``for as long as the danger to such individual exists.'' Redmond did not offer examples of how Internet release of a judge's financial disclosure statement might lead to security risks. But she said some judges now require round-the-clock protection by U.S. marshals. ``Judges have very unique jobs,'' she said. ``They sentence murderers, terrorists and other criminals. Some judges' lives have been threatened.'' DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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