The US Supreme Court today allowed the Bush administration to keep secret the names and other basic details about hundreds of people questioned and detained or arrested after the September 11th, 2001, attacks.
Without comment, the top court refused to hear an appeal by civil liberties and other groups challenging the secret arrests and detentions for violating the Freedom of Information Act and constitutional free-speech rights under the First Amendment.
The justices let stand a US appeals court ruling that disclosing the names could harm national security and help "al Qaeda in plotting future terrorist attacks or intimidating witnesses in the present investigation."
Although the high court stayed out of the dispute involving the names of those detained, it has agreed to hear other cases arising from the administration's war on terror.
Those cases involve the president's power to detain American citizens captured abroad and declared "enemy combatants," and whether foreign nationals can use American courts to challenge their incarceration at the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.