In a shocking failure to protect sensitive details about dozens of ongoing
criminal investigations, federal officials somehow allowed confidential
information about sealed cases to be publicly accessible via the court
system.s online lookup service, The Smoking Gun has learned.
Over the past nine months, details of 40 separate sealed court
applications filed by federal prosecutors in Alabama were uploaded to
PACER, the web-based records system that counts nearly one million users,
including defense lawyers, prosecutors, journalists, researchers, private
investigators, and government officials.
The court applications, made by ten separate prosecutors, included
requests to install hidden surveillance cameras, examine Facebook records,
obtain credit information on certain individuals, procure telephone
records, and attach devices on phone lines that would allow agents to
track incoming and outgoing calls. Remarkably, the U.S. District Court
records--which covered filings as recent as April 11--included specific
names, addresses, and phone numbers that should never have appeared on
PACER.
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