it's on our calendar is united states of america as real later or says american university in beirut thank you thank you council you may proceed imo i just remind you that we're on to c l here and we will refer only to the relator not by any other name right i won't try to prejudice the other side's case by naming my client i am going to make my arguments thank you so i respectfully submit that this is a first amendment case and it really goes to the heart of the first amendment there's never ever been a party in federal that litigation in this country that is been told that had its identity sealed against it's well it's never happened before a lot of people including my client my client but the right is designed to protect the public's right to know your client's rights if they exist at all are secondary t y i respectfully submit that everyone has a first amendment right to speak and i also submit that absolute you know not every reduction not every reduction has to be undone you know the it's not that it can be overridden in certain circumstances where where there's a danger or there's public concern it seems to me that your client just wants to get make get public credit for this case and that's the that's the motive it serves no other purpose that i can think of maybe you can like me but respectfully public credit is important public credit allows rights people to accomplish thing isn't the test here it is whether the the district or the standard reply is whether the district court abused its discretion in balancing your client's desire for public credit against the dangers that would be visited on the american university of beirut should your client be publicly revealed and there was a basis for the judge to reach those the conclusion that the ceiling what would would be appropriate on that on that day on that basis that there were threats and possibilities of violence and physical harm will your honor i would i would say at a minimum the question is really the balance there was a balancing and but before that it's abuse of discretion so and do you have any quarrel with that part well your honor yes to an extent i mean there's enough legal issues here that i would submit that you could take a de novo look at this under the case he cited and perhaps more importantly the defendant here really didn't offer a lot besides a letter from its counsel saying here's here's what's going on and if we do even if we do look at this as an abuse of discretion standard we have a situation where the terrorists alleged terrorists halfway across the world are getting a veto on the first amendment here in the united states and i submit that that's just an abuse of discretion and they shouldn't be allowed to have this kind of unprecedented control over over what's said i mean that's this whole case is about fighting terrorism in beirut sorry the american university in beirut operates on as i understand it and for a number of years the president of it has not been in physically because of the of the danger and so it's it's it may be that it's a terrorist in in lebanon that that they're concerned about but it's it's it's it's it's a strong american interest in the american university  beirut that is the possible potential victim of that anderson i haven't heard that of the president being physically located here in the united states or something in the papers on that score well i perhaps any of that in any event there had been other incidents that were that were cited in the record to the district judge will you know a big part of the point of terrorism your honor is to silence people and scare people and i would respectfully submit that that's exactly what's going on here it's an attempt to suppress what people can and cannot say so that makes it all the more important not to bow down to those that's just what you're saying that the first amendment right that you enjoy here is absolute and never subject to any kind of  restraint or modification is that is that your position i wouldn't go that far your honor but i would respectfully submit that there has to be a lot more than what was presented to the district judge a lot more when you're saying the district judge committed an abuse of discretion yes but the balancing of the equities yes your honor that's a high standard and the first amendment gives requires gives us all a lot of rights your honor and i submit that under the circumstances given what's happened that they haven't met that standard right i don't have anything more to say but you have no more questions you know what you have reserved for minutes for abroad oh yes we'll hear from the american university thank you beirut thank you your honor daniel resumed for the american university of beirut and so opposing counsel just told us that this decision gives terrorists a veto power over what's public and i heard that your honor and we vehemently disagree the american university beirut has been in existence for one hundred fifty years it is chartered by the new york board of regions it is an american university operating in beirut but it's very much focused on western values and the american style of education it has been existing in a very difficult environment and is judge walker mentioned there have been numerous incidents of violence and terrorism in beirut and the incident your honor was referring to judge walker is that during the lebanese civil war there was a period of ten years where the president of a u b had to be removed from the university he's currently there now but but there was this period in the eighty's going through much of the ninety's where that happened and the incident that sparked this was the presidents shortly before that was malcolm kerr who in one thousand nine hundred four was pulled out of the university and murdered after that there were a number of school administrators who were abducted held prisoner and it was a very violent period of time now certainly the civil war has ended but serious right next door and there are all sorts of incidents that happen all the time including a recent bombing of a bank in lebanon bank and at that time had announced among others in the banking sector that the bank intended to abide by u s sanctions on lebanese lebanese political party has bola and as a result of that that weekend there was a bombing at bank plumbs headquarters we mentioned this to the district where we put in a letter we outlined what we believe to be very plausible dangers if the name of the real leader were to be revealed we are  disagreeing that this is a first amendment issue it certainly is and there is a first amendment presumption of access but as i think your honor cooler judge pooler mentioned or or perhaps it was judge walker this is a qualified privilege and what is required under the first amendment which is the more robust presumption there's a common law presumption as well that the first amendment presumption is more robust what is required is that we look at the value of the first amendment right and in this case the court found that there was negligible value and the reason for that is this is a false claims act and the relator brought the action on behalf of the united states not on behalf of itself negligible weight or presumption here and the district court weigh that against what was the potential dangers and the judge found there was a plausible danger to the university it was a qualified right the judge made specific findings of a plausible danger and then narrowly tailored the actual ceiling so the only thing that remains under seal at this point is the identity of the relator and information that would reveal that identity very narrowly tailored to protect the university's interest  safety of the students faculty and the university itself what standard are used for of you here judge walker you are right it's an abuse of discretion standard the case cited by the relator us v molina had nothing to do with the actual issues we're dealing with molina was a situation in which a criminal defendant sought to see the pre sentence investigative report of his co defendants who were not testifying was essentially a brady giglio issue and the court said we'll look at that to know vo whether a defendant has the right to see the p s r of other defendants who are not testifying very very different here the court made specific on the record findings found a negligible value to the first amendment presumption here based on the fact that it really didn't go to the core issue which is the functioning of the u s courts the ability of the u s public to monitor the proceedings the court correctly waive those and it's subject to an abuse of discretion standard what the judge did here judge acton certainly did not abuse his discretion american university turns out to have been in violation of several rules under which they received money and wound up admitting guilt and paying back money didn't say well you're right i take a slight issue with that so the american university of beirut signed serve occasions in order to get us the idea grants but they didn't admit kilts they did not admit knowingly doing this they know it yes so the critical issue under the certifications is it has to be a knowing violation we did not agree that the us government did not require that because there was in our mind clear evidence that we did not knowingly do that but there was a mistake there was no question about it on the day the complaint was unsealed american university of beirut entered into this resolution really or was part of that and at that point we agreed to pay back seven hundred thousand dollars of the grant money that we had received because of the mistake that clearly had been made relator so argument is that not just the public but they themselves the relator have a right to the public value of what they did they  they want people to know that they were good here in helping the united states taxpayers get back money that should have been spent they certainly have a right like all members of the public to do that your honor but as judge walker pointed out it's a qualified privilege this presumption of access and here where the relator brought the action on behalf of the united states judge ecan properly found that the value of revealing the relator name was negligible and it was only tangential to the case so ultimately judge ecan weighed balanced these competing concerns and his finding that the relator identity should continue to be under seal is certainly not an abuse of discretion if nothing else i'll sit down thank you very much thank you mr abrams you've reserved three minutes or about oh yes i have just one thing i'd like to say in response which is it's not just the name of my client that's also the judge's decision on that issue a substantial amount of that is redacted so the judge's reasoning in the decision is also under seal at this point but if you've seen it of course we have all that's correct you're right so so then what what what would the public gain from the reasoning that your honor the public's entirely getting something from knowing the reasoning of judges of course and judges in general there's a general principle that the public has a right to see the reasoning of course so if the name is removed and any indication of your client is removed from the order or from the opinion of the  a positive i didn't see in the record that you had asked judge captain to alter his redaction decisions and asked for last to be redacted in particular did you make such an application i believe so i believe we made an application and filed an amended notice of a p r not one it's a few months back but i'm pretty sure i'm not talking about the identity of your client i'm talking about the specific language you wish hadn't been redacted in any particulars did you identify a word or a phrase or a particular sentence that you thought shouldn't have been redacted while complying with the judge in the appeal i didn't say well this should have been and that should have been i just appealed the fact that the opinion itself was redacted and i'm pretty sure ok ok thank you thank you thank you both will reserve decision