ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE OF U.S. COURTS Oops! Investigators post wiretap secrets on Web

Information is usually withheld in cases that have not gone to trial.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Federal authorities inadvertently disclosed secret details of an investigation into alleged corruption in Philadelphia last week when they posted information about wiretapping in the case on the World Wide Web.
For several hours last Friday, the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts included what was supposed to have been sealed information about the probe in an annual public report on government surveillance.
The report gave the names of the federal judges who authorized the wiretaps, the dates they were placed, the offense being investigated and a tally of how many "incriminating intercepts" were made during the period when law enforcement agents were listening in.
The document didn't contain the names of the people whose phones were tapped, but the information could be ascertained by matching dates on tapes listed in the document with dates on letters sent by prosecutors to people whose conversations were recorded.
The sweeping two-year investigation burst into public view Oct. 7, when police discovered an FBI bug that had been placed in the city hall office of Mayor John F. Street.
Additional phones
Legal documents subsequently confirmed that federal agents had also tapped the phones of the city's treasurer, an administrator at Philadelphia International Airport, an attorney named Ronald White who had raised money for Street's campaign, and a Muslim leader named Shamsud-din Ali, who owns a company that held city contracts.
The report posted by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts provided a few additional details.
It said the taps had collectively produced more than 5,000 "incriminating intercepts" over the course of several months, although it didn't say who made the allegedly criminal statements or what laws investigators believed had been broken.
The report indicated that some of the taps had been placed as part of a racketeering investigation.
Court administrators quickly withdrew the report, but not before a copy had been acquired by The Philadelphia Inquirer, which reported the newly disclosed details of the bugging operation in Sunday's editions. A new version of the wiretapping report with the sensitive information removed was released Tuesday by the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts.
Karen Redmond, a spokeswoman for the office, declined to say what led to the disclosure of the sealed information.
The office is required by federal law to prepare an annual report on wiretaps authorized by federal and state judges, but its usual practice, she said, is to withhold information about investigations that are still secret or have not yet come to trial.
Spokesmen for the Department of Justice and the U.S. attorney in Philadelphia also declined to comment.
Street, White and Ali have all denied any wrongdoing.
Federal prosecutors said in letters sent to people whose conversations were recorded during the bugging operation that the listening devices in Street's office collected no evidence of criminal misconduct.