I wanted to see the ACLU’s brief in support of its motion asking a court to order the Omaha World-Herald not to publish the name of an ACLU client-plaintiff. The ACLU was kind enough to pass along the court’s order denying the motion, and the text of the motion itself, but it said that it couldn’t pass along the brief supporting the motion — which contains all the argument and citations of authority — because all other documents are sealed. (The judge had already, I think at the ACLU’s request, restricted the parties from revealing the plaintiff’s name, and thus presumably ordered some documents to be sealed; the question in the motion was whether he could restrict newspapers who aren’t parties to the case from doing the same.)
So I can’t really evaluate the merits of the ACLU’s arguments as well as I’d like. But just focusing on the existing law, and setting aside any creative arguments that the ACLU might have made and I haven’t thought of, it’s not surprising that the judge denied the ACLU’s request, and it would be surprising if that denial were overturned.
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