Lockheed seeks to seal JLTV record

Lockheed Martin wants to make sure that a key record related to its protest of the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle contract award to Oshkosh by the Army remains permanently sealed.

At issue is the transcript of a Jan. 20 hearing before Court of Federal Claims judge Charles Lettow at which all parties involved argued their cases, presumably in great detail.

According to an order issued by Lettow and filed on Feb. 5, Lockheed's request to have the transcript sealed is legitimate because the proceedings that day included so much information about “nascent military technology and competitively sensitive data” that making a heavily redacted document available to the public wouldn't be “meaningful.”

There is a silver lining, however, for those who might bemoan the lack of public access to the full case record. Lettow ordered the beginning portion of the transcript -- 12 pages and 12 lines -- to be published. Ironically, that portion of the transcript contains only an exchange between a reporter and court officials in which the reporter unsuccessfully argues that most of the hearing should be conducted in the open.