Transcript of document discussion
19 Your Honor, this is the time set for a telephone
20 conference in Civil Case 06-274-KI, Al-Haramain Islamic
21 Foundation, Inc. v. Bush, et al.
22 Counsel, there is a court reporter present, so
23 please be sure to state your name before you speak.
24 And here is Judge King.
25 THE COURT: Good morning, everyone. We're having
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1 this conference to discuss further the issue of the document
2 filed under seal. I met with Mr. Borgen this morning.
3 Mr. Borgen, as you know, is the national – or the regional
4 security specialist. He works, of course, for the U.S.
5 Attorney's Office, the executive office of the U.S.
6 Attorney's.
7 He has, in my office, in my presence, seen the
8 document in question, and he has advised me of the
9 classification of that document. And it has been indicated
10 to me that that document has to be placed in an SCI
11 facility. My understanding is that there is such a facility
12 in the FBI office in Portland, and there is a facility in
13 the U.S. Attorney's Office in Seattle. So basically,
14 Mr. Borgen is taking the position that I am required to
15 place that in one of those two facilities.
16 Now, I recall that Mr. Goldberg has indicated a
17 reluctance or an objection to having that left in the office
18 or under the control of the FBI because it is a defendant in
19 the case.
20 It looks like, Mr. Goldberg, that we are faced
21 with placing this in one of the two facilities. What's your
22 position at this time?
23 MR. GOLDBERG: Your Honor, first of all, can I ask
24 the Court, have you personally reviewed the document at this
25 time?
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1 THE COURT: I have seen the document, yes.
2 MR. GOLDBERG: Okay. My understanding is that –
3 and I base this on a conversation I had this morning with
4 Steve Wax, who is the federal defender in Oregon. And what
5 I've been doing is trying to call other attorneys to get a
6 sense of how – whether in other cases they've been involved
7 in where classified documents were involved, how they have
8 dealt with it in the past. Mr. Wax advised me that there
9 is – my understanding is that Mr. Borgen actually works for
10 the U.S. Attorney's Office, or is assigned as part of the
11 U.S. Attorney's Office. There's also another separate
12 section within the Justice Department called the litigation
13 security section, which is in – I think headquartered in
14 D.C., and which also works more as a neutral party –
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