Date: 5 Jan 1996 13:40:25 -0500
From: "David Sobel" <sobel@EPIC.ORG>
Subject: Court Rules in Pentagon City Mall Case

In a case litigated by EPIC staff, the federal appeals court in
Washington, DC, has ordered the U.S. Secret Service to release
information concerning a controversial "hacker" investigation.
The January 2 ruling partially rejected the agency's three-year
attempt to withhold documents concerning the 1992 "Pentagon City
Mall Raid."  In November of that year, a group of young people
affiliated with the computer magazine "2600" were confronted by
mall security personnel, local police officers and several
unidentified individuals in the Virginia shopping mall.  The group
members were ordered to identify themselves and to submit to
searches of their personal property.  Their names were recorded
and some of their property was confiscated.

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) filed suit
in federal court in early 1993 seeking the release of relevant
Secret Service records under the Freedom of Information Act.  The
litigation of the case has been handled by the Electronic Privacy
Information Center (EPIC).  In July 1994, U.S. District Judge
Louis Oberdorfer ordered the Secret Service to release the vast
majority of documents it maintains on the incident.  The
government appealed that decision to the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the District of Columbia Circuit, which partially affirmed the
lower court decision in the recent ruling.

The appeals court rejected the agency's attempt to invoke a
blanket claim of "source confidentiality" for all information
involving investigations of computer crime, noting that "the
Service offered no evidence that a fear of retaliation by hackers
is sufficiently widespread to justify an inference that sources of
information relating to computer crimes expect their identities
and the information they provide to be kept confidential."  The
court did, however, uphold the agency's claim that information
identifying particular individuals should be withheld from
disclosure.

Additional information, including the text of the appellate
decision, is available at:

        http://www.epic.org/computer_crime/2600/