An official court record on federal and state wiretaps was taken off the Web site of the office that keeps track of prosecutions around the country and later re-posted with sensitive information removed, CQ/Homeland Security has learned.

The information regarding wiretaps in at least two and perhaps five terrorism cases was removed from the document posted on the Web site, according to a comparison of the original document, which had been archived by CQ on May 2, and the current document.

A more precise number could not be ascertained because there were multiple entries for wiretaps associated with the same judge and federal prosecutor.

The original document was removed from the Web site of the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, or AO, and reposted two days later without the terrorism cases.

Created in 1939, the AO provides administrative, legal, financial, management, program and information technology services to the federal courts, according to its Web site.

The cases were removed because they contained information that was “apparently part of a continuing investigation,” according to AO spokesman Dick Carelli.

The terrorism wiretaps involve one case in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, and one to four investigations in Puerto Rico.

An aide to Judge Carol B. Amon — who granted the wiretap in the New York case — said “the only comment coming from this chamber is that there is no comment.”

The AO’s wiretap report does not list secret warrant requests from the Justice Department and FBI approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The AO report is an account of “the number and nature of federal and state applications for orders authorizing or approving the interception of wire, oral or electronic communications,” according to its director Leonidas Mecham.

Following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the Bush administration began removing documents from many government Web sites, such as the Department of Defense, and occasionally asked commercial Web sites to remove records it deemed sensitive.

In 2004 CQ rebuffed a request from the Transportation Security Administration to remove the transcript of an unclassified, public congressional hearing on lapses in airport security.

More recently, it was discovered that the National Archives and Records Administration had reclassified CIA and other agency documents in order to keep them out of the hands of researchers.

“I think the recent reclassification flap at the National Archives illustrates two facets of the issue,” said classification expert Steve Aftergood, editor of the newsletter Secrecy News.

“Fist, errors in disclosure do get made, and in some cases they may be worth correcting.

“But second, agencies have a distressing tendency to overreact, and to use erroneous disclosure as a pretext to improperly withdraw information from the public domain.”

Brian Rohrkasse, a spokesman for the Justice Department, which is responsible for federal terrorism investigations and prosecutions, said he knew nothing of the affair.

Ethan P. Sommer is a CQ/Homeland Security intern.