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A federal appeals court is barring the public from arguments in the case of a fired FBI contractor whose lawsuit was thrown out of a lower court when the Bush administration invoked the state secrets privilege. Sibel Edmonds's allegations of security breaches and alleged misconduct at the FBI have been aired on Capitol Hill and in a 35-page report by the Justice Department's inspector general. Nonetheless, on the eve of a session before a three-judge panel, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit notified her lawyers that the case would be heard in secret Thursday. Briefs in the case were publicly filed. "It's unprecedented and outrageous for the court of appeals to close the argument and it serves no proper purpose to keep the public out," said one of Edmonds' lawyers, Arthur Spitzer of the American Civil Liberties Union. The court acted on its own, not at the request of the government, Spitzer said he was told. The ACLU challenged the closed hearing and was supported by media organizations including The Associated Press. Two private groups, the Project on Government Oversight and Public Citizen, also joined the effort. The three appeals court judges who were to hear the case are Douglas Ginsburg and David Sentelle, appointees from the Reagan era; and Karen LeCraft Henderson, who was appointed a federal judge during the Reagan era and elevated to the appeals court by President Bush's father in 1990. [more]