U.S. District Court Judge Henry Kennedy, who in 2005 had ordered the government to preserve information on prisoner mistreatment at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, scheduled a court hearing on the tapes for Friday, overriding government objections.

Lawyers for a group of Guantanamo Bay inmates contesting their detention had requested the hearing to learn whether the government had complied with the preservation order. They cited reports that information obtained from the interrogations implicated five unnamed Guantanamo detainees.

"We hope to establish a procedure to review the government's handling of evidence in our case ... and generally to require an accounting from a government that has admitted that it destroyed evidence," said David Remes, an attorney for the group of inmates.

He declined to comment on whether he believed any of his clients were implicated during the interrogations.

The CIA on December 6 disclosed that it had destroyed hundreds of hours of interrogation tapes, prompting an outcry from congressional Democrats and human rights activists. The sessions recorded on the tapes were believed to have included a form of simulated drowning known as waterboarding, which has been condemned internationally as torture.

The CIA said it destroyed the tapes lawfully and did so out of concern for the safety of agents involved if the recordings were ever made public. The White House has repeatedly denied the United States tortures terrorism suspects.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the judge's hearing order but the department last week urged Kennedy not to investigate the videotapes.

Park Il Woo pleaded guilty in federal court on Friday to lying about his role as a South Korean agent, the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan said. Park, who also goes by the name Steve Park, was never charged with espionage.

Prosecutors have said that Park made 50 trips to China and the Korean peninsula over the last several years and had appeared to be engaged in espionage type activities for at least five years.

Park is a South Korean citizen living in the United States. U.S. law requires anyone acting as an agent of a foreign government to register with the attorney general and disclose the nature of the activity.

An FBI agent said in court papers that Park had not registered, though he had admitted meeting with South Korean intelligence officers and agreeing to be paid to travel to North Korea to gather information for South Korea.

According to court papers, Park met with the FBI once in 2005 and twice this year, each time lying about his contacts with or knowledge of certain South Korean officials.

Park's lawyer has said her client is a law-abiding resident, and this case was an instance in which "what appears to be quite bad turns out to be much less."

Kevin James, 31, and Levar Haley Washington, 28, entered their pleas in separate appearances before U.S. District Court Judge Cormac J. Carney. Washington also pleaded guilty to using a firearm to further the conspiracy. Prosecutors said he used a shotgun to rob a Torrance gas station on July 4, 2005.

James faces up to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced March 31. Washington faces up to 20 years in prison on the conspiracy charge and five years to life for the firearms offense when he is sentenced April 28.

Authorities say James, Washington and two others were part of a California prison gang cell of radical Muslims that planned the attacks in the Los Angeles area.

"Homegrown terrorism remains a grave concern to the security of our country, and this cell was closer to going operational at the time than anyone since 9/11," Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Michael Downing told reporters at a news conference after the two men entered their pleas.

Police uncovered the plot in July 2005 while investigating a string of gas station robberies that authorities say were committed to finance the attacks. Torrance Police Chief John Neu told reporters at the news conference that authorities linked about 10 holdups to the plot.

The plotters were within weeks of being able to carry out an attack, officials said, when they were discovered about two months before the Jewish holiday Yom Kippur.

Washington and James, who arrived in court in chains and prison jumpsuits, said little during their separate hearings. Both men wore goatees and Washington's face was covered in tattoos.

Washington's attorney, Ellen Barry, said outside court that her client decided it was "in his best interests" to plead guilty. James' attorney, Robert Carlin, declined to comment.

Also indicted in the case were Gregory Vernon Patterson and Hammad Riaz Samana. All but Samana, a Pakistani national, are American-born Muslim converts.

Patterson and Samana are charged with conspiracy to levy war against the U.S. government through terrorism, conspiracy to possess and discharge firearms in a violent crime, conspiracy to kill members of the U.S. government uniformed services and conspiracy to kill foreign officials. Patterson is also charged with a robbery count and using a firearm in a violent crime.

U.S. Attorney Thomas O'Brien said Samana has been declared mentally unfit to stand trial and is undergoing psychiatric care at a federal prison facility. Patterson is expected to plead guilty to a terrorism conspiracy charge on Monday.

Prosecutors say the plot was orchestrated by Washington, Patterson and Samana at the behest of James, a California State Prison, Sacramento, inmate who founded the radical group Jamiyyat Ul-Islam Is-Saheeh, or JIS.

The two former Touro College undergraduates were among 10 people indicted by a grand jury in July in a scheme to use the city college's computer system to change grades and create fake degrees in exchange for money.

Azizov admitted during his plea that in January he paid a Touro official to change his grades. Prosecutors said when Azizov was arrested his grade point average had jumped to 3.63 from 1.23 because of the transcript changes.

Yakubov admitted he paid a college official in February to falsify his records. Prosecutors said when Yakubov was arrested that he bought a fake transcript showing he had earned a master's degree from Touro's Graduate School of Education and Psychology.

District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said in announcing the indictments that the defendants included Touro's former director of admissions, the former director of the school's computer center and three public school teachers.

The indicted school officials created or altered records for at least 50 people since January 2007, Morgenthau said, charging fees of $3,000 to $25,000 for better or deleted grades and for bachelor's and master's degrees. Cases involving those defendants are pending.

Lawyers for Azizov and Yakubov said that they had no comment as they left court Thursday.

In only the third time the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) has publicly released a ruling, it turned back a request to reveal documents that would shed light on the government's program to spy on the communications of terror suspects without first obtaining warrants.

FISC's ruling argued that its role as a unique court dealing with national security issues necessarily meant its case documents and decisions would be classified, and that US constitutional provisions did not require it to release case materials.

It also said that even first deleting sensitive material from the papers sought by the American Civil Liberties Union -- secret documents related to the legality of the surveillance programs -- risked accidentally damaging the country's security.

"That possibility itself may be a price too high to pay," the court said in rejecting the ACLU request.

Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU National Security Project, called the decision disappointing.

"A federal court's interpretation of federal law should not be kept secret from the American public," Jaffer said.

"The Bush administration is seeking expanded surveillance powers from Congress because of the rulings issued by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court earlier this year. Under this decision, those rulings may remain secret forever."

In August the ACLU sought access to FISC rulings and orders made earlier this year that were cited in a new law, the Protect America Act, which expanded the government's powers to spy on the international communications of US citizens without first seeking a warrant.

The civil liberties advocates argued that the public had a right to know the content of those rulings and orders as they were used by the government to widen the parameters of its surveillance powers.

In the decision signed by FISC judge John Bates, the court said that, even if the court first removed justifiably secret materials to oblige the ACLU request, it still "might err by releasing information that in fact should remain classified (and) damage to national security would result."

Ellie Rommel was employed as John Duncan’s secretary when he was a partner at the law firm of Verrill Dana. She said she reported what she thought was questionable behavior by Duncan.

Duncan has since been fired from the firm after nearly 30 years.

Rommel told News 8 that she struggled over whether she should tell others what she knew.

"If I had to do it again, I know I would do it,” she said. “But I never dreamt it would be so difficult, so painful."

According to Rommel, she was wrongfully terminated at Verrill Dana after blowing the whistle on Duncan. She said she now plans to file a lawsuit against the firm.

Her attorney also is filing a complaint with the Maine Human Rights Commission.

A representative of Verrill Dana told News 8 that the firm appreciates Rommel “for bringing the situation to their attention” but added that the facts clearly show that Rommel was not fired.