NEW YORK (AP) – A judge Monday rejected the city’s effort to keep secret large amounts of information including videotapes documenting the arrests of hundreds of protesters at the 2004 Republican National Convention.

U.S. Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV repeatedly criticized the city’s reasoning for its requests, saying there was little factual support, or they lacked common sense.

For instance, he rejected the city’s arguments that some documents needed to be secret merely because they contain information that is unreliable or subject to misinterpretation.

“The mere fact that a given document does not provide the reader with a full picture does not make it unreliable,” he wrote. “Additionally, the city gives the general public very little credit when it contends that readers will be unable to grasp that the information contained in these documents might be incomplete or inaccurate.”

More than 1,800 people were arrested at the four-day convention at Madison Square Garden, where President Bush accepted his party’s nomination for a second term in office.

As many as 10,000 police officers from the 36,500-member department, the nation’s largest, were deployed to protect the city from terrorism threats and to cope with tens of thousands of demonstrators at the convention.

The legitimacy of the arrests was challenged on civil rights grounds in lawsuits brought by the New York Civil Liberties Union on behalf of some of those arrested.

Although both sides agreed that some documents could remain secret, the NYCLU challenged the secrecy of others.

City lawyer Peter Farrell said the city was considering its legal options.

“The judge’s decision may permit that documents that have already been provided in the case can be shared with the public. The city had opposed publication in the interests of preserving the privacy of people who participated in RNC demonstrations who are not involved in this lawsuit,” he said.

The judge rejected the privacy argument as he ruled that 27 videotapes of several hundred arrests on Aug. 31, 2004 in lower Manhattan and at Union Square could be made public.

“It will not come as a surprise to anyone in New York City that the NYPD videotapes large crowds of protesters, given the amount of publicity generated in recent years by this very practice,” he said.

The judge also turned away the threat of terrorism as an excuse for secrecy, saying that a “vague assertion that terrorists might be interested in schematic diagrams” and other information related to a pier where some of those arrested were processed was insufficient.

The city had even asked that a document describing the use of plastic handcuffs be secret.

“The allegedly sensitive information to which the city refers would be obvious to anyone with a modicum of common sense,” he said.

The judge said the city sometimes used “vague assertions” to ask for secrecy and sometimes was more blunt, like saying that 700 pages of police interoffice memoranda detailing discussions about police tactics might cause embarrassment and mislead the public.

“The mere fact that documents were not intended for public view when they were created does not justify a protective order,” the judge said.

Christopher Dunn, NYCLU associate legal director, called the judge’s findings “a very strong opinion saying ‘no’ to secrecy.”

Dunn said the NYCLU would not immediately release the videotapes and documents on the group’s web site because the city had indicated it might consider an immediate appeal.

“While this may not establish a new legal precedent, it establishes a very clear approach of skepticism to secrecy claims,” Dunn said.