LEGAL FILE

What’s in the File: In the latest move in an almost 9-year-old Freedom of Information Act case, a U.S. district judge on Tuesday ordered the federal government to provide by Sept. 11 a description of top-secret files the FBI kept on the late John Lennon during the early ‘70s. Along with asking the government for an affidavit detailing what it has on the former Beatle, the judge asked for more reasons why the files should be withheld. Jon Wiener, an American history professor at UC Irvine, requested the files on Lennon in 1983, but since then, the case has gone up and down the federal judicial system. The government consistently has contended that to release such information would compromise national security. Wiener wants Lennon files the FBI collected in 1971-72, specifically those regarding Richard Nixon’s reelection campaign.