She also knew, of course, what happened a year ago in Paris: the only first-round Grand Slam loss of her career, to a woman ranked outside the top 100, no less.

Eager to repeat the elation of 2002, and motivated by the disappointment of 2012, Williams used terrific defense and her usual powerful hitting in Saturday's final, closing with a crescendo of aces three in the last game for a 6-4, 6-4 victory over defending champion Maria Sharapova to collect a second Roland Garros title and 16th major trophy overall.

"I'm still a little bit upset about that loss last year," the No. 1-ranked Williams said with a chuckle, her shiny new hardware an arm's length away.

"But it's all about, for me, how you recover," she continued. "I think I've always said a champion isn't about how much they win, but it's about how they recover from their downs, whether it's an injury or whether it's a loss."

As she spoke those last few words, her voice choked and her eyes welled with tears. There have been low moments for the 31-year-old American none worse, perhaps, than a 10-month stretch ending in 2011 that included two foot operations and treatment for blood clots in her lungs but she's enjoying a high point right now.

Saturday's victory was her 31st in a row, the longest single-season streak in 13 years. Williams is 43-2 with six titles this season.

"She is playing extremely well," Sharapova said. "She's a competitor."

Sharapova is known for her grit on a court, too. She entered Saturday ranked No. 2, the winner of her last 13 French Open matches, and the only active woman other than the Williams sisters with more than two Grand Slam titles. But she doesn't seem to stand a chance against Serena, who has won their last 13 encounters.

This was the first major final between women ranked 1-2 in more than nine years the first at Roland Garros in 18 and yet it really was not all that close. Particularly at crunch time.

Under a cloudy sky, and amid a breeze that blew dust in both players' eyes, Sharapova began well enough, saving four break points in the first game, then breaking in the second, prompting plenty of murmuring in the stands.

The next game went to 40-15 on Sharapova's serve, one point from a 3-0 lead. That's when Williams got going. A 13-stroke exchange culminated with a forehand that forced Sharapova's backhand error and started a four-point, break-earning run for Williams. She got to 2-1 with an overhead smash she punctuated with a staredown, a raised left fist and a loud "Come on!"

That fist was aloft again a half-hour later, when Williams' cross-court forehand winner helped her break to lead 5-4, and she served out the set.

Sharapova saved five break points in the second set's opening game, but that merely delayed what everyone expected. Williams got the last break she would need two games later, and it was made possible by the sort of baseline scrambling she did all day. Sharapova struck a forehand down the line that would have ended the point against most opponents, but Williams got the ball back, and with an extra shot necessary, the Russian slapped a forehand into the net.

On break point, Sharapova smacked a 109 mph serve, but Williams' strong return forced another mistake. Now Williams merely needed to hold serve the rest of the way, and half of her 10 aces came in her last two service games.

Sharapova observed that Williams serves "harder than David Ferrer," referring to the man who will face seven-time champion Rafael Nadal in the men's final Sunday.

Serving at 5-4, Williams recalled, "I was just so nervous. I thought, 'I'm not going to be able to hit groundstrokes.' No joke. The one groundstroke I did hit went, like, 100 feet out. I thought to myself, 'Look, Serena, you've just got to hit aces. That's your only choice.'"

Simple as that, huh? Well, with her, yes.

She started with an ace at 118 mph. After a wild backhand miss not 100 feet out, but maybe 10 she hit an ace at 121 mph. She got to 40-15 with a backhand winner and crouched down, hand to her face, aware she was one point away.

One more strong swing delivered the fastest ace yet, 123 mph. Williams flung her racket and dropped to her knees.

A few minutes later, Williams was addressing an appreciative crowd in French, telling them about her "incroyable" victory and noting she considers herself a Parisian. She owns an apartment in the city and has been working with French coach Patrick Mouratoglou.

"She feels a bit at home here," Mouratoglou said.

Williams hadn't been back to the final in Paris since beating her sister for the 2002 title. From 2003-11, she lost in the semifinals once, the quarterfinals four times, the third round once, and missed the tournament three times because of injury. Then came last year: Williams was 17-0 on clay when she arrived in France, then quickly 17-1.

"She was so devastated by that," said her mother, Oracene Price.

Soon after, Williams began practicing at Mouratoglou's tennis academy. And however demoralizing that loss was, it turned out to be career-rejuvenating. Since then, Williams is 74-3 and has won three of the last four Grand Slam tournaments.

She is the oldest woman to win the French Open in at least 45 years, and the oldest at any Grand Slam since Martina Navratilova was 33 at Wimbledon in 1990.

"I really believe age is a number at this point, because I have never felt so fit. I feel great. I look great," she said, laughing at her own joke. "If I see someone that's 31, I'm like, 'You're old.' Then I'm like, 'I'm 31.' But I don't feel it at all."

At the moment, no current players can keep up with her.

If she keeps playing like this if she maintains her focus and, most importantly, stays healthy the real challenge is how she will stack up with past greats of the game.

"I feel like I definitely want to continue my journey," Williams said. "If it means I stop at 16 or if it means I have more, I definitely want to continue my journey to get a few more."

She's won the sixth-most major titles in the history of tennis, which dates to the 1880s. Add two more, and she'll equal Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert with 18. Would anyone be surprised if Williams got there by the end of this year?

The only women with more are Margaret Smith Court (24), Steffi Graf (22) and Helen Wills Moody (19).

"For Serena, nothing is out of reach," Mouratoglou said. "If she really wants something, it's very difficult to stop her."

Shortly after Saturday's match ended, Williams found Mouratoglou near the players' lounge and wrapped both of her arms around his neck for a long embrace. Then they headed down the stairs leading to the locker room. Williams told Mouratoglou she wanted to go do some cool-down exercises to stretch her back.

Wimbledon begins two weeks from Monday. There are more matches to win, more trophies to collect, more history to be made.

"I want to go out in my peak. That's my goal," Williams said. "But have I peaked yet?"

___

Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich

Freddie Mac says the rate on the 30-year fixed loan fell to 3.98 percent from 4 percent the previous week. Seven weeks ago, it dropped to a record low of 3.94 percent, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage edged down to 3.3 percent from 3.31 percent. Seven weeks ago, it too hit a record low of 3.26 percent.

Rates have been below 5 percent for all but two weeks this year. Yet this year could be the worst for home sales in 14 years.

Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Bert and Ernie of "Sesame Street" fame, the stars of "Fraggle Rock" and other puppets, costumes and items from throughout Muppets creator Jim Henson's career have been donated to the Museum of the Moving Image, which is building a new gallery to house them, the institution announced Tuesday.

Encompassing almost 400 items ranging from original puppets to behind-the-scenes footage, the gift is a boon for the 25-year-old museum, which saw attendance skyrocket in 2011 and 2012 during a temporary exhibit of Henson's work. And it fulfills a cherished goal for Henson's widow and collaborator, Jane Henson, who died last month at 78.

"She loved the Muppet characters as though they were part of her own family," and the actual puppets themselves were special to her, one of the couple's daughters, Cheryl Henson, said at a news conference. "It was her dream to have these dear friends find a good home where they could be seen and enjoyed, and where new audiences could learn about the many facets of my father's work."

The exhibit is to open next year at the museum in the Long Island City neighborhood, across the East River from midtown Manhattan. The city is chipping in $2.75 million toward the $5 million cost for a project it sees as furthering its goal of persuading more tourists to venture beyond Manhattan.

"The only major item that I know will not be represented is the Muppet that they made of me," Mayor Michael Bloomberg joked at the news conference, where he bantered with Miss Piggy about the city's film and television industry and reminisced about their joint work in the 2008 TV special "A Muppets Christmas: Letters to Santa," which featured Bloomberg as himself.

"You were wonderful almost lifelike," the porcine prima donna quipped Tuesday. (For the record, Bloomberg's personal Muppet has a nice home of its own, in a reading room at the mayor's Manhattan town house.)

A puppeteer, screenwriter and producer, Henson introduced a raft of beloved and familiar characters during a career that spanned from the 1950s until his death in 1990, at 53. Some, including his Muppets and Fraggles, appeared in both television shows and movies, among them the 1984 film "The Muppets Take Manhattan," which depicted the fuzzy crew striving to stage a Broadway musical.

While being a shrewd and innovative businessman, "Jim Henson created indelible, memorable characters that live with us throughout a variety of media," said Carl Goodman, executive director of the Museum of the Moving Image. Henson's career showed "that you can march to the beat of a different drummer and succeed in this world," Goodman said.

Ten Henson puppets from the 1950s TV show "Sam and Friends," including the original version of Kermit the Frog, were donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in 2010. The Smithsonian already had a Kermit puppet from the "Sesame Street" and "The Muppet Show" era.

___

Follow Jennifer Peltz at http://twitter.com/jennpeltz

HANGZHOU (Reuters) - Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, China's largest e-commerce platform, said it will commit "as many resources necessary" to stop the sale of pirated goods on its Taobao shopping portals, where transactions exceeded $161.7 billion last year.

The company said its incoming chief executive would join a task force to combat piracy on its platforms.

Alibaba has been clamping down on the sale of fake goods, but users of Alibaba's Taobao Marketplace, which is similar to Amazon.com's marketplace, can still find knockoff Chanel bags or Vera Wang dresses. Its Taobao Mall has storefronts where retail brands can sell to consumers.

Industry watchers widely expect Alibaba to seek an initial public offering as early as this year, and intellectual property protection concerns may turn off some potential investors. Addressing the issue now could help the company avoid some uncomfortable questions during an IPO road show.

The company said it will partner with government bureaus and ministries such as China's Ministry of Public Security to fight counterfeiting and intellectual property rights infringement.

"Counterfeits are the narcotics of the marketplace," said Alibaba founder and Chairman Jack Ma, who announced in January that he was stepping down as CEO. "We don't want Alibaba's name to be associated with counterfeiting."

Incoming CEO Jonathan Lu will head the IP task force, which will also include chief risk officer Polo Shao.

"We are committed to put as many resources as necessary to tackle the problem," Shao said in a speech at Alibaba's headquarters in Hangzhou, about an hour from Shanghai by high-speed train.

The task force will cooperate with government bureaus to report stores that infringe on intellectual property rights, to share information and to help trace the source of fake goods.

In December, the United States dropped Taobao from its annual list of the world's most "notorious markets" for sales of pirated and counterfeit goods because the company had "undertaken notable efforts" to clean up its shopping sites.

In September, Taobao Marketplace signed a pact with the Motion Picture Association (MPA), an affiliate of the Motion Picture Association of America, to curb the sale of counterfeit and copyright-infringing products on the platform.

Alibaba Group said in December the value of transactions on its Taobao platforms exceeded 1 trillion yuan ($161.74 billion)for the first time in January-November last year.

"The protection of IPR and fighting against counterfeit goods, if we don't do it well, will be something I'll regret," Ma said.

In 2012, Alibaba said it provided information to law enforcement officers involving 72 brands, and 170 million yuan worth of merchandise was taken down from its shopping sites.

($1 = 6.1826 Chinese yuan)

(Reporting by Melanie Lee; Editing by Emily Kaiser)

Now, three years later, Officer Joseph Weekley goes on trial in the death of Aiyana Stanley-Jones. Jury selection starts Wednesday.

Weekley, charged with involuntary manslaughter, is accused of acting with gross negligence when he didn't prevent his gun from firing during the chaos that followed the use of a "flash-bang" device.

The shooting shocked Detroit. Cooperation between police and the reality show, "The First 48," was banned in the aftermath, and the chief soon resigned at the mayor's request when it was revealed that he was working on plans for another TV show.

But beyond the city, there was little, if any, impact on the hunger for real-life police drama on the small screen. "Cops," in its 25th year, still is on the air, moving from Fox to Spike TV this fall. "The First 48" has been on A&E Networks since 2004.

"They're fascinating and compelling," said Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture at Syracuse University.

"Everyone has built into them an inherent interest in encounters with police," he said. "We know how our adrenaline gets going when we see that flashing light behind us when we're going too fast on the highway. ... Every now and again an incident happens, but it isn't enough to trump the momentum this genre has."

The loud, smoky device used in the Detroit raid is intended to startle and confuse people as officers swarm a scene. But some critics of the police department's tactics believe it was used in the fatal raid simply to satisfy a crew from "The First 48," a show that focuses on the crucial early stages of homicide investigations.

Weekley's trial could reveal how the TV crew's presence influenced decisions that May 2010 night.

"This was essentially a military assault on a private dwelling," said Ron Scott, spokesman for a watchdog group, Detroit Coalition Against Police Brutality. "I think the administration of the police department wanted to show Detroit was tough on crime and show something exciting for television.

"Police work is not television, and television work is not police work," he said. "The two combined to make it a horrific night."

Officers hunting for a suspect in the murder of a 17-year-old boy staked out a home that night on Lillibridge Street. Weekley was first through the door when the grenade went off during the midnight raid.

Police have said his gun accidentally discharged after he confronted or collided with Aiyana's grandmother. A bullet struck and killed Aiyana, one of four children inside.

Then-Police Chief Warren Evans apologized for the girl's death, telling her family, "I will never be able to put myself in your shoes." He promised a "painful self-examination" by the department but never explained why a stun grenade was necessary.

After that, officials declined to speak publicly about the raid because of a civil lawsuit and investigations that led to charges against Weekley.

Defense attorney Steve Fishman declined to comment ahead of the trial. But in court filings, he has knocked Wayne County prosecutors for trying to turn Weekley into a criminal. The maximum penalty for involuntary manslaughter is 15 years in prison.

Weekley "had nothing to do with the planning of the raid and was merely a police officer assigned to a certain position ... by a superior officer," Fishman said in the filings.

He said his client shouldn't be held responsible for the "ineptitude of the officer assigned to deploy" the stun grenade. The jury will see a demonstration of the device away from the courthouse.

Mayor Dave Bing banned reality TV crews from tagging along with police after Aiyana's death. Evans was forced out as chief two months after the shooting, partly because he was involved in planning a different reality show starring himself.

A&E declined to comment on whether Aiyana's death led to any changes in how "The First 48" crews do their job. A videographer, Allison Howard, is charged with perjury and withholding video crucial to the investigation. Her trial is set for June 24.

The Rev. Horace Sheffield III handled Aiyana's funeral and repeatedly has demanded a full accounting by police. He plans to attend the officer's trial.

"If those cameras had not been there, what would the outcome have been?" Sheffield said. "That's the important question to ask. It's a situation that cries out for justice."

___

Follow Ed White at https://twitter.com/edwhiteap .

(Reuters) - An Idaho man who admitted to breaking into a Boise zoo last year and killing a monkey was sentenced to seven years in prison on Thursday, court records show.

Michael Watkins, 22, of Weiser, Idaho, in March pleaded guilty to attempted grand theft, a felony, and misdemeanor animal cruelty stemming from the break-in and beating death of the monkey at Zoo Boise in November.

The primate was one of the zoo's two Patas monkeys, ground-dwelling animals from Africa that stand more than 2 feet tall and weigh about 35 pounds. They are rare in zoos but not endangered in the wild.

The case shook officials at the zoo and triggered an outpouring of sympathy and donations from animal lovers worldwide.

Watkins scaled the security fence at Zoo Boise in the pre-dawn hours of November 17 and attempted to steal the monkey, which bit him, police said. Watkins then kicked and hit the animal, severely wounding it, according to police. The monkey later died of blunt force trauma, zoo officials said.

Zoo Boise Director Steve Burns said on Thursday the sentencing of Watkins closed a particularly devastating chapter for the facility.

"We're moving on," he said. "The court has done its job and we're continuing to do our job."

In the days after the death, zoo staff sought to boost the spirits of the companion-less Patas monkey and considered shipping it to another zoo with primates since they are exceedingly social, Burns said.

Instead, Zoo Boise in December gained two female Patas monkeys donated by the Rosamund Gifford Zoo in Syracuse, New York.

News about the monkey's death brought donations from across the United States and overseas, allowing the zoo to begin construction on Monday of a $250,000 exhibit for the three Patas monkeys, Burns said.

(Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Bill Trott)

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Sure, it sounds a bit creepy to have an app always recording your entertained life, but it's also way more convenient. "The one lingering concern from our partners was, maybe a 30-second TV ad is not long enough for someone to pull out their device and Shazam a commercial," David Jones, Shazam's marketing chief, . Before the new upgrade, Shazam took approximately 12 seconds to boot up and tag, but auto-tagging speeds up the process to one to three seconds. In practice, Shazam will only tell a user about some bit of entertainment (or advertising) if they inquire, by physically tapping the tag. You'll then get all the extra information Shazam provides, without having to pull out your iPhone or iPad to hit the Shazam button. That information — and that information only — will also inform the app's , in which Shazam present users with "custom experiences" during commercial breaks of television shows they're watching. When a user Shazams a compatible program or television advertisement, not only does it pull up information about the program, but the branding kicks in on top. See? Convenience! But at what privacy cost?

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As one of the most successful apps of all time, the London-based Shazam recognizes the frightening implications of turning its music-ID software into a kind of always-on household eavesdropper, insisting that the company doesn't plan on using all the data it will inevitably collect for evil. "We're not trying to do anything like audience measurement on a grand scale across our user base. We're only interested in what our consumers actually engage in, not what auto-tagging may pick up around you," Shazam's executive vice president of marketing, David Jones, . Although the app tags everything it hears, it will only consider a sound "meaningful" if a user "engages" with said tag. "If the device just auto-tags it and it stays unopened, we'll treat it as something that wasn't of interest to you," he further explained. But what does that really mean? And can, like, the Justice Department come calling one day?

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Well, probably, yeah, they could call. But you should probably actually worry more about your newfound willful overengagement than your illicit conversations with friends while the TV is on: "We're already sitting on a goldmine of data, and we're being respectful and thoughtful about how we monetise that," Shazam's Jones added. And, of course, auto-tagging gives Shazam even more data than that "goldmine" by recording and tagging everything around us. Shazam says it will use all this information responsibly — but that's now, during expansion. As we've seen with lots of other data collection websites (ahem, Facebook) tunes change when investors and founders get agitated by the lack of profits generated by their free services. 

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There remains one very encouraging option for those with privacy fears: The new Shazam recording option is opt-in. And, hey, sometimes it might make sense to have the auto-tagging feature turned on, when the benefits outweigh the idea that Shazam is always listening. Like, during a commute, as Jones used as . "My entire commute's music was sitting there," he said.

The latest in a string of celebrities to put their stamp on a prepaid card, Orman will likely avoid the criticism about high fees lobbed at earlier offerings, such as those of hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and reality show stars the Kardashians. Orman's card costs $3 to obtain, and then just $3 a month, rivaling the hugely popular Walmart MoneyCard.

Although some will question how Orman will recoup the more than $1 million she has invested in the card when charging that little, the real twist isn't the low fee structure. Orman is working with credit reporting agency TransUnion to create a new kind of credit score for users of "The Approved" prepaid MasterCard, one that's based on their spending habits.

Right now, using debit cards both the prepaid kind and those tied to bank accounts does not influence an individual's credit score, which is calculated with data related to borrowing. If Orman's experiment is successful, this new type of score could be a game-changer for the estimated 60 million Americans who do most or all of their personal business in cash or with cash alternatives like prepaid cards.

The TV adviser said she approached several companies, urging them to agree to develop such a score, and TransUnion ultimately agreed to gather spending data for 18 to 24 months. It will use that data to try to come up with a formula that works as a way to predict whether the user is a good risk for lenders.

"This is truthfully a work in progress," said Orman.

Banks and other lenders are interested in creating ways to measure how prepaid cards are used, because of the huge market they represent. Consumers loaded an estimated $70.7 billion onto prepaid cards in 2011, up from $2.7 billion in 2005, according to consultancy Mercator Advisory Group.

Mercator projects the market will top $120 billion this year if adoption continues at the same pace.

In general, users can be divided into three groups. The first subset is those caught up in the economy people who had good credit until it was damaged by events like unemployment or foreclosure. Second are those who have not yet built credit histories, mainly the young and recent immigrants. The third group avoids banks, often because of negative experiences, such as racking up high overdraft fees.

"Wouldn't it be fabulous if, for the first time in history, people are literally rewarded for spending cash, versus penalized, in my opinion, for doing so?" Orman said.

The problem with traditional credit scores from FICO Inc. and its competitors is that they measure how well individuals keep up with their payments, but don't pay any attention to their overall financial health, she said. "Scoring doesn't question where the money is coming from to make payments."

Prepaid cards have already filled some of the void for those who don't use banks, especially because they can be used to receive paychecks via direct deposit. But because they don't contribute to credit scores, the cards can't help users get a mortgage, a car loan or a credit card.

Not having a credit score, or having a low one, also drives up the cost of living in other ways. Lower scores can mean higher car insurance rates, higher rent, difficulty getting a job and paying higher interest rates for any credit available. People with little credit history known as a "thin file" in the industry are also the most likely to use alternative services like payday lenders, check cashing stores and bill pay services. These are expensive options when compared with credit cards and banks.

FICO Inc. and other companies use data tied to borrowing to determine a score meant to measure the likelihood an individual will pay back future loans. FICO's 300-to-850 scale is based on an individual's history making payments on loans, the percentage of available credit that is being used and how long the individual has used credit, among other data.

Those with thin credit files have a better chance of having their creditworthiness reflected by FICO's "expansion score," which factors in data like utility bill payments and rent payments. FICO CEO Mark Greene said the expansion scores have shown that the population without traditional scores mirrors to the larger population in terms of credit risk. Other credit score providers are beginning to provide measures based on utility payments and other nontraditional data.

One big difference for developing a prepaid score, however, is that these alternatives still measure how well individuals meet obligations, not how they spend the rest of their income.

"Spending is not actually a great indicator of the thing that we're trying to measure, which is the likelihood you're going to pay your bill," Greene said. "We need to be careful about how we approach that issue."

Another issue a prepaid-linked score must address is the fact that the typical reloadable card is used for just three to four months, said Brian Riley, who analyzes the card market for the consultant The Tower Group.

That timeframe is likely to expand, however, because more users are beginning to have their paychecks deposited to reload prepaid cards. Adding rewards and services, and cutting fees, may also increase customer loyalty.

Orman is adamant that her card will carry only a $3-per-month fee for users who load at least $20 per month onto it. Fees will rise only if the user uses ATMs outside the network it is linked to when withdrawing cash. Consumers who use The Approved Card will also get daily text messages updating their balance, along with one after each purchase, and other free services like ID theft monitoring, credit monitoring and free credit reports from TransUnion.

The media star, whose new show on the Oprah Winfrey Network premieres Monday, said she knows creating the score will be an uphill battle, but believes that if successful, it will help both lenders and borrowers. "You've got to start it somewhere, and this is the beginning of that process."

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Quick background is in order. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or FISC, was created in 1978 to "review applications for warrants related to national security investigations," . Its creation stemmed from the , a Senate group organized to address instances of domestic spying by the military and presidentially authorized assassination attempts. By empaneling federal judges to review requests for surveillance under the , the goal was that FISC serve (somewhat ironically) as a check on executive branch power, while keeping the information classified. FISC, after all, is a secret court; the government appears before the judges and asks for authorization to surveil suspects, who aren't represented. As the War on Terror expanded, so did FISA, and so did FISC's reviews.

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Last July, Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon releasedin response to a question about one of the FISA expansions. Written by Kathleen Turner, Director of Legislative Affairs for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the letter stated flatly: on at least one occasion, FISC ruled that some of the government's information collection violated the Fourth Amendment. The violations, Turner indicated, related to , a controversial provision added in 2008 which allows the government to eavesdrop on electronic communication if it involves non-Americans, outside the United States.

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Which brings us to the EFF, a non-profit advocacy group focused largely on protecting online privacy. Once it became public that there existed a court opinion outlining how the government violated the Constitution, the group sought to have it made public (this sort of thing being in their purview). In a phone interview with The Atlantic Wire today, Mark Rumold, a staff attorney with the organization, described the process of requesting a secret document from a secret court.

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First, EFF requested the FISC opinion from the Department of Justice under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). The DOJ responded saying that the document was classified and refused to release it.

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Second, the EFF sued Justice. Rumold: "A principle in FOIA says that if there's any information that can be segregated and released, it has to be." Since the opinion is long, more than 80 pages, EFF assumed there must be significant legal discussion that could be released. "To us, it seemed very much like they were trying to hide the fact that what they were doing was unconstitutional," Rumold said. Justice responded to the lawsuit with a new argument: FISC's rules prohibited DOJ from releasing the document.

Which differs from what FISC told the ACLU five years ago, when the ACLU tried to get information from the court. FISC said that the proper avenue for accessing information was FOIA. As , this is a Catch-22: The judicial branch (FISC) says to ask the executive branch (DOJ). The executive branch says to ask the judicial.

So, third, the EFF filed a motion with FISC. Or, rather, it began to try to do so. The thing about secret courts is that they don't have well-lit offices into which one can walk and drop off paperwork.

Filing the motion "was unusual, to say the least," Rumold says. "Very little about the FISC is known. They have published rules. The public knows the judges that are on the FISC." But that's about it. The EFF found a phone number that was supposed to be used to file with the court, and called it. For four days. "We kept calling and leaving messages and calling and leaving messages and no one returned our calls."

Fourth, the EFF tried another number, meant to be used if you need to serve the Department of Justice. "I think I talked to four diff people in the DOJ," Rumold said. "Finally they said they'd contact the FISC for me." Rumold didn't hear back.

Fifth, the EFF reached out the presiding FISC judge who sits on the bench in Washington, DC. Rumold called his chambers and asked his clerk to help file a motion with FISC. The clerk said no.

Sixth, the EFF finally got a call back from someone at FISC. That person explained that the light on the phone that indicated if there was a voicemail was broken, so none of the EFF's messages had been heard. But at last the EFF got an answer to the question of how to file the motion: Send it to the Department of Justice.

Seventh, the EFF did that. And the DOJ said they'd pass it along.

The result of the motion, mind you, will not be the release of FISC's opinion on the Fourth Amendment. Instead, it is meant to have FISC answer the question of whether or not its rules prohibit FOIA disclosures. (You can , if you speak Law.) If that response indicates that its rules don't prevent FOIA release, the EFF will return to court and force the DOJ to release FISC's opinion. Or at least some heavily redacted subset of the opinion. At some point after that, then, the American public may learn how and when the government violated the Fourth Amendment protection against unwarranted searches. (It's not certain that the government did spy on citizens, Rumold notes, but he thinks it's "quite likely.")

, the president pointed to a FISC-like court as a possible way of ensuring more transparency in the use of drones against terror targets.

If one model of making the drone program more transparent is FISC-like review, there's certainly reason for skepticism.

But Rumold, speaking with us prior to Obama's speech, pointed out that all of the attention paid to drones by the media had actually prompted a much different response from the government. "The transparency issues with drone strikes and with this type of electronic surveillance — in terms of the legal rationale for hiding this information — are identical," he said. "In the drone strike example, there's been a dramatic increase in transparency."

"If I had that in terms of electronic surveillance, I'd be happy."

Photo: Obama speaks in Mexico City, May 5. (AP)

The full 10thhas scheduled an hour-long argument session to allow lawyers for the family-ownedto argue their case that the contraception mandate violates sincerely held religious beliefs of the company owners.

The owners, the Green family, are evangelical Christians. The company already provides their 13,000 employees with health-care coverage, but it does not include certain kinds of birth control methods that are offensive to the Greens religious beliefs. They particularly object to the provision of the so-called morning after pill, which they believe can be abortion-inducing.

The case is one of 59 lawsuits challenging the contraception mandate that are pending across the county, and one of a handful to reach the appellate level. Legal analysts expect potential future appeals to arrive at thelater this year.

Specifically at issue is whether the courts should issue a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of President Obamas health-care reform law pending a full airing of the underlying religious liberty issue.

Appeals courts have split on the question, with three granting an injunction and three others refusing to block the new law.

The legal dispute is developing into a major confrontation pitting the scope of an individuals ability to practice religious freedom against the Obama administrations power to order employers to facilitate reproductive freedom for their female employees.

Government lawyers defend the health-care regulations, saying that they do not violate theor constitutional guarantees of freedom to follow ones religion without government interference.

In briefs to the appeals court, they said the decision whether to use certain government-required health-care services was a decision to be made by the employee, not the employer.

Government lawyers also argued that any burden of providing contraceptive services is a burden to the company, not to its owners. They said that profit-making companies like Hobby Lobby Stores do not enjoy religious liberty protections under the .

Those protections cover nonprofit religious organizations, government lawyers said, not for-profit, secular companies.

[The company owners] cannot circumvent this distinction by asserting that the contraceptive-coverage requirement is a substantial burden on the [owners] personal exercise of religion, the governments brief to the appeals court said.

The mandate does not compel the [owners] as individuals to do anything, the brief said. The lawyers said that it is Hobby Lobby that is the employer and Hobby Lobby that sponsors the group health plan.

Any subsequent decision to purchase a contraceptive service belongs to the employee, the government said, and any resulting clash with the owners religious beliefs is only a slight burden of religious practice, the brief said.

Lawyers for the Green family disagree.

This case asks whether religious business owners forfeit their faith as a cost of doing business, lawyers with thewrote in their brief on behalf of the Green family and Hobby Lobby Stores.

They said the contraception mandate would force the Green family and their company to offer insurance that entangles them and their business in the practice of abortion.

If the family refuses to comply, they and their company will face substantial financial penalties.

When government threatens to ruin a familys business unless they renounce their faith, the pressure placed on them is unmistakable, the Becket Fund lawyers wrote.

By any means of law and common sense, the Greens and Hobby Lobby are severely burdened by the governments draconian regulation, and they may seek redress under our Constitution and laws, the lawyers said.

Hobby Lobby is an arts and crafts retail company with more than 500 stores in 40 states. The Green family also owns Mardel, Inc., which runs 35 Christian-themed book stores employing 372 workers. The bookstore business is also a plaintiff in the suit.

The case is Hobby Lobby Stores v. Sebelius (12-6294).

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