By Debbie Schlussel

Al-Jazeera is quite hypocritical when it comes to the American public’s right to know. It’s suing to keep a lot of stuff secret from the American public.

Al-Jazeera stops at nothing to use American laws, openness, and freedoms to broadcast its hatred of America on cable through the apparati bought from Al Gore. But when it comes to American laws, openness, and freedoms used on Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-owned network that favors Al-Qaeda and HAMAS does a 180. Al-Jazeera’s army of lawyers is fighting to keep secret all records and proceedings in a lawsuit it filed in U.S. courts. Al-Jazeera sued AT&T in a sealed lawsuit, and is so desperate to keep the records under seal that it willingly dropped the suit. But that doesn’t mean the records can’t be unsealed to the public–which has a right to know what it’s fighting so hard to keep under wrap. And a battle is brewing between American media outlets and the Terrorist News Network over the records. Remember, the network is owned by the country that negotiated with the U.S. to release five top Taliban monsters into its luxurious midst in exchange for Bowe Abdullah Bergdahl.

Al Jazeera America LLC is trying to avoid unsealing a lawsuit it filed last year accusing AT&T Inc. of improperly keeping the news channel off AT&T’s U-verse cable-television lineup. Al Jazeera got into the U.S. cable market by acquiring Al Gore’s Current TV. But AT&T refused to give space to the U.S. version of the Qatar-based channel on U-verse, although it had carried Current TV. Each side said the other breached the affiliation agreement that governs their relationship, but the details on how aren’t known because much of the case is under seal.

After being ordered to unseal the complaint, Al Jazeera said it would drop the case, wiping the public record clean of the lawsuit. Journalists, including a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, objected to the sealing last year. Several news organizations continued efforts to unseal the case. AT&T didn’t appeal the order to unseal the case, but Al Jazeera, which has won dozens of journalism awards, fought on.

Ordered by the Delaware Court of Chancery to unseal most of the heavily redacted complaint, Al Jazeera appealed to the Delaware Supreme Court. The newest entrant to the U.S. news market said it would suffer competitive harm if details of its gripe with AT&T were made public. The Delaware Supreme Court on May 30 declined to take the case, leaving Al Jazeera no further avenue of appeal.

On Wednesday, Al Jazeera went back to the Court of Chancery and said the channel had come to terms with AT&T and would seek to have the case dismissed, erasing the complaint and related papers from the public record. . . . The Court of Chancery on Thursday granted a 10-day stay of the unsealing order to allow the parties to complete the settlement and seek an order to expunge the record.

David Finger, a lawyer for some of the media challengers, said Al Jazeera’s proposal to circumvent the unsealing order “lacks any basis in law.” Joel Friedlander, another media lawyer, said in court arguments that the public’s right of access was infringed when Al Jazeera improperly sealed the documents last year.

While court records are often sealed, it has to be for a legitimate, lawful reason, such as protecting the identity of a minor. That isn’t the case here. Al-Jazeera is demanding Middle-Eastern, Islamic-style confidentiality that simply isn’t legitimate in the United States of America or any Western nation. And yet, Al-Jazeera was allowed to file a redacted, sealed complaint, engage in confidential, unrecorded, closed court sessions, and other proceedings that are highly unusual and very improper.

Al Jazeera said the idea that it could have the suit dismissed and leave the case under wraps was raised by members of the Delaware Supreme Court during a closed session. “The confidential portion of the argument was not videotaped, but the court raised this possibility initially during that confidential portion,” Al Jazeera’s attorneys wrote Wednesday.

Um, why on earth was the session confidential? And what is Al-Jazeera trying to hide?

Americans should turn the tables–and the cameras–on Al-Jazeera and its propagandists, er . . . “reporters” and stalk them with these questions. And the judges who allowed the documents to be sealed and the court sessions to be held in secret, in the first place.

If Al-Jazeera can’t play by the same rules that apply to us, it has no place in America and on our cable broadcasts.

And that is the problem with Muslims and their institutions that invade America. They want our freedoms and liberalism to apply to them, but when it’s the other way around, there is no tolerance whatsoever.

Again, what is Al-Jazeera hiding?