Sealed records exposed on PACER.

• Position: COURT RECORDS

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Over a nine-month period, the details of 40 separate sealed court applications filed by federal prosecutors in Alabama were uploaded to the U.S. courts' web-based records system called Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER), making them accessible to its more than one million users. PACER users include journalists, government officials, private investigators, lawyers, and researchers.

The exposed court applications, which pertained to dozens of ongoing criminal investigations, according to The Smoking Gun, included requests to install hidden surveillance cameras at residences; examine Facebook records; obtain individuals' credit information and phone records; and track phone calls.

Even worse, the U.S. District Court records included names, addresses, and phone numbers.

A Smoking Gun reporter discovered the breach and alerted the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) representatives and court officials in the Middle District of Alabama, which comprises 23 counties and includes the city of Montgomery. Prosecutors quickly deleted the confidential information from the online records system, but there is no way to determine whether the sensitive information was viewed or disseminated by other PACER users, thus jeopardizing the cases.

A DOJ source called it a "disastrous situation." One government lawyer was "shocked" to discover that details from sealed court applications were...