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FBI pays a fine of 5.8 Million to Steven Hatfill + Judge Sanctions FBI
for Hiding Info From Him


http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/11/18/41587.htm


Friday, November 18, 2011Last Update: 12:25 PM PT
Judge Sanctions FBI for Hiding Info From Him By TIM HULL

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     (CN) - The FBI must pay for lying to a court and withholding
information about its investigations of Southern California's Muslim
community, a federal judge ruled, calling the government's deception
in the long-running case deliberate and "inexcusable."
     Both U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney and the 9th Circuit have
previously found that the FBI improperly held back a trove of
documents from the court in a lawsuit involving several Muslim-
American community organizations and leaders, including the Islamic
Shura Council of Southern California and the Council on American
Islamic Relations-California.
     The organizations had filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)
request in 2006, seeking documents related to any bureau
investigations of their members since 2001. They sued the government a
year later when their request produced a mere eight pages, most of
them heavily redacted.
     The FBI eventually came up with about 100 pages of documents on
nine of the 11 plaintiffs. But the government heavily redacted those
documents, claiming that much of the information was outside the scope
of the FOIA request. Asked to permit release of the redacted
information, Judge Carney reviewed the full documents in chambers.
Only then did the FBI reveal, for the first time, that it had withheld
documents from both the plaintiffs and the court.
     An incensed Judge Carney attempted to unseal the withheld
documents, but the government filed an emergency appeal with the 9th
Circuit. Two panels of the federal appeals court in Pasadena
considered the issue, and in March ruled that the documents should
remain sealed, despite the FBI's deception. While the documents should
have been given to the court, the FBI had justifiably kept them from
the plaintiffs based on national security concerns, according to the
appellate court's finding, to which Carney consented.
     But that decision did not resolve the more-than-5-year-old case,
with the plaintiffs seeking sactions against the government for lying
to the court. Judge Carney agreed, granted the motion Thursday from
Santa Ana with an impassioned defense of the federal judiciary's
oversight responsibilities under FOIA.
     "The government claims that its intention was not to mislead the
court but that it was following a well-established policy of the
attorney general to deny the existence of responsive documents if, in
the sole opinion of the government, the disclosure of the information
in the responsive documents would compromise national security," he
wrote. "The government's deception of the court was inexcusable. The
court cannot perform its important oversight role mandated by FOIA
unless the government provides it with complete and accurate
information. It is the court, not the government, who determines what
the law requires. The court must impose monetary sanctions to deter
the government from deceiving the court again."
     "There is no legal precedent that the court is aware of - and the
government has furnished none - that permits submission of false
information to the court in any circumstance, including in the context
of a FOIA request," he added. "Indeed, presenting false information to
the court is antithetical to the very structure of FOIA, which
mandates judicial oversight by the District Court."
     Judge Carney ordered the government to pay "the amount of
reasonable attorneys' fees to plaintiffs for bringing the instant
motion."
     Islamic Shura Council of Southern California Executive Director
Shakeel Syed praised the decision. "We applaud the Court for
restraining the government and upholding the Bill of Rights," Syed
said in a statement.