A Texas judge claims that secrecy is shrouding U.S. courts beginning with the establishment in 1978 of our first secret court, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. Then the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 walled off access to records of court orders for surveillance of citizen e-mails and cell phones. There is also evidence of unprecedented sealing of civil cases with flimsy justifications. (Just Security, May 6, 2016, by Stephen Wm. Smith)
Denny Walsh and Sam Stanton of The Sacramento Bee, November 20, 2015, found other disturbing secrecy in the Sacramento-based federal court. The reporters described a routine arson case in which the court sealed plea agreements. The federal government is pushing for secrecy “to protect defendants who may face retribution in prison if other inmates know they cooperated with prosecutors and investigators.”