Subject: FBI Kisses Queens Pocked Arse
So now the FBI obeys the Official
Secrets Act?
U.S. may fight to keep letters about Lennon secret
Updated 9:09 PM ET February 18, 2000
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Almost 20 years after the
assassination of John Lennon, a government lawyer warned Friday
that releasing documents about the former Beatle's left-wing
political activities could damage national security.
An attorney for the government said he would probably appeal the
ruling of a federal judge Friday ordering that three letters about
Lennon from an unidentified foreign government -- believed to be
Britain -- be turned over to a college professor.
Jon Wiener, a history professor at the University of California,
Irvine, wants to use the letters as part of his legal battle to obtain
10 classified documents remaining in Lennon's FBI file. The
singer was murdered Dec. 8, 1980, by a deranged fan as he
returned to his apartment on Manhattan's Upper West Side.
The ruling by U.S. Magistrate Judge Brian Robbins was a small
victory for Wiener, who has been battling the FBI over Lennon's
file since 1983 in a case that has gone all the way to the United
States Supreme Court. The University of California Press last year
published Wiener's book "Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon
FBI Files."
In 1997, as part of a settlement with the historian, the FBI released
all its Lennon files except for the 10 documents that are the subject
of the current litigation. The FBI says a foreign government, which
it will not name, has asked that those documents remain secret.
Wiener, relying on information from a former MI5 officer named
David Shayler, believes that that the documents refer to the
murdered Beatle's financial support of left-wing groups in the
1960s.
Robbins ordered the government to release "redacted," or
censored, versions of the three letters, which amount to the
unnamed foreign government's explanation of its position on the
still-secret documents.
But Justice Department Attorney Thomas Caballero told Wiener's
attorney after the hearing that the U.S. government was likely to
appeal Robbins' ruling because it still believes the release of the
10 documents in Lennon's file could jeopardize national security.
"This is not 'national security information,"' Wiener scoffed. "It
consists of 30-year-old reports on the political activities of a dead
rock star."
