The secret proceedings of book clubs in the city and beyond.

There is a dramatic historic example in the immigration field of how secret proceedings may go wrong.

"The irony that lawyers are protected by secret proceedings while earning their livelihoods in an open system of justice is not lost on the public."

The limitation of secret proceedings to cases where classified information would be disclosed is really no limitation at all.

She said it could not verify whether all of the immigrants in the secret proceedings had access to lawyers, as the Justice Department has asserted.

Grand jury and John Doe investigations are secret proceedings for which witnesses may be subpoenaed.

The Attorney General could move to use secret proceedings and secret evidence by asserting that the alien was a threat to national security.

Both sides declined to comment on the ruling by Judge Johnson, who has rebuked lawyers for revealing any matters covered in secret proceedings.

Malek Zeidan's detention would have been unexceptional had it not given rise to one of the legal challenges that threatens to end the secret proceedings.

The secret proceedings of a Federal grand jury in Manhattan considering possible indictments are scheduled to last until the end of September.

It would be nice to think that the cause of the injustice to Beatrice Braude and other loyalty victims - secret proceedings - is ancient history.

Of course, the fear of secret proceedings is particularly acute among Middle Easterners living in New Jersey.

They make a useful, non-bureaucratic record over time, they keep people who couldn't attend informed, and they reassure people that there aren't secret proceedings.

Mr. El-Atriss's new lawyer, Miles Feinstein, objected to the higher bail and the secret proceedings.

Andrew Cuomo and Mr. Hirschfeld agreed that the Governor's son had been cleared in the normally secret proceedings.

"The First Amendment requires that secret proceedings occur only where there has been a specific individualized showing that closure is necessary in a particular case," he added.

C.I.A. analysts who testified before the committee agreed there was espionage, people who heard the secret proceedings said, but were more equivocal about its value to China.

"The public does not accept the profession's claims that lawyers' reputations are so fragile that they must be shielded from false complaints by special secret proceedings," it stated.

"The secret proceedings belong to another era," said Barry Krisberg of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency in San Francisco.

Last Thursday, Mr. Nichols, who is 30, pleaded guilty at a secret proceeding held in Judge Korman's chambers to two Federal racketeering-related murder charges.

If the report included any material gleaned from the grand jury investigation into the matter, the secret proceedings would have to be reviewed by a Federal court before being released to Congress.

The Web site has become a direct threat to the secret proceedings of the National Research Group, a Los Angeles-based company that conducts test screenings for the studios.

The case has drawn intense international interest, with Jewish and human rights groups criticizing the secret proceedings and the treatment of the accused, especially those paraded on state television to repeat their confessions.

In March 1986, the CJC withdrew its cooperation from the Mishra Commission because it disagreed with the commissions decision to hold secret proceedings, and started filing individual court cases.

In an interview, Mohammed Javad Larijani, a member of Iran's 15-member National Security Council, said the men had been sentenced after secret proceedings that were justified on national security grounds.