A newly uncovered document reveals that the US supreme court sought to beef up judicial protection, while also reducing public scrutiny of the courtâs doings, before the courtâs controversial decision to overturn Roe v Wade.
The heavily redacted memorandum of agreement (MOA) on security is dated March 2022, and was obtained by the Guardian after being recently surfaced by governmentattic.com.
The document shows that the US marshals service and the supreme court of the United States police department (SCUSPD) agreed to enhance cooperation and intelligence sharing and provide protection for retired judges on request. It also mandated that the cost of USMSâs enhanced cooperation would be paid for by them and the department of justice, rather than being added to the judiciaryâs budget.
Crucially, the MOA mandates that the court would maintain âexclusive legal custody and controlâ of all security-related records, even those in USMS possession. That means those records would be explicitly excluded from Freedom of Information Act (Foia) requirements, and hidden from public view.