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ON JANUARY 12, 2004, according to David Stout of the New York Times, the Supreme Court refused to reconsider a lower court's ruling "that the Justice Department was within its rights in refusing to identify more than 700 people, most of those Arabs or Muslims, arrested for immigration violations in connection with the attacks" of September 11, 2001. Mr. Stout usefully reduced the case to its gist by writing that it "pitted two fundamental values against each other-the right of the public to know details of how its government operates and the government's need to keep some information secret to protect national security."
The Supreme Court thus decided, in effect, to support the Justice Department's policy of holding prisoners in secret for the sake of national security, but it did not resolve the conflict between "the right of the public to know" and "the government's need" for secrecy.