The public will be able to read daily online transcripts of testimony during next month's trial of five suspected terrorists accused of plotting to kill soldiers at Fort Dix.Yet defense lawyers yesterday could not challenge details in a classified affidavit that is hands-off to them, even though it had been used to obtain wiretap evidence against their clients. The wiretap was obtained under the controversial Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), in the area's first test of the recently extended law.
The conundrum of trying to be open and secret at the same time played out before U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler in federal court in Camden, where he denied numerous motions during a nearly four-hour hearing. "It's very very frustrating," said attorney Rocco Cipparone, who represents Mohamad Schnewer, 23, the lead defendant, after the hearing. "We're unbelievably hampered to challenge an affidavit we're not allowed to see . . . We have to make arguments blind."