Judge Blocks U.S. Plan to ‘Clear’ Lawyers

A federal judge has blocked a new government effort to subject opposition lawyers to FBI background checks and other probes before turning over unclassified government information, court papers showed today.

In a stinging rebuke to the U.S. attorney’s office, U.S. District Judge Harold Greene compared the government’s effort to “clear” opposition lawyers to the legal system of the Soviet Union.

At issue was a government demand that lawyers representing Hispanic Drug Enforcement Agency agents involved in a class action suit against the DEA submit to an FBI background check before the government turned over routine personnel records showing assignment patterns.

The government contends that the information is “DEA sensitive” and that it requires its own employees to submit to a background check, but Greene said the information was “typically and obviously necessary” in employment discrimination actions.

According to lawyers and court papers, it is the first time the government has sought to require background checks on private lawyers before releasing information that is not classified national security material.

Greene said he was “perplexed as to what analogy may be drawn between individuals working for the government whom the government can ‘clear’ any way it wished . . . and lawyers in private practice retained by individuals litigating against the government.”