NEW YORK (AP) – The city may appeal a judge’s ruling that would let the public see documents describing intelligence gathered by police to help create policies for arrests at the 2004 Republican National Convention, a city lawyer said.

Federal Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV made the ruling Friday. It concerned 600 pages of documents related to information the New York Police Department says it relied upon in deciding how to handle the arrests.

Judge Francis stayed his ruling for 10 days, and Peter Farrell, a city lawyer, said the city was considering an appeal.

The city had contended that disclosing the contents of the documents would jeopardize the city’s rights to a fair trial in lawsuits that claim the city violated constitutional rights in arresting more than 1,800 people at the convention.

“Notably, the city does not contend that these documents must be kept confidential because of security concerns or because public disclosure would jeopardize legitimate law enforcement interests,” Judge Francis wrote.

The New York Civil Liberties Union, which brought lawsuits on behalf of some of those arrested, praised the ruling.

“The decision is a vindication for the public’s right to know and a total rebuff of the police department’s effort to hide behind the cloak of secrecy when it comes to its surveillance activities,” said Donna Lieberman, the civil rights group’s executive director.

“It’s also a rejection of the police department’s efforts to distract the public with unfounded attacks on the New York Civil Liberties Union,” she added.

Although both sides in the case had agreed that some documents could remain secret, the NYCLU and The New York Times challenged the secrecy of others.

The magistrate judge noted in his ruling that the city “complains bitterly” that it has been treated unfairly by some media outlets while failing to mention “significant favorable coverage” by others.

Judge Francis said: “The press, by encouraging public discussion of the issues raised by these cases, serves an important role maintaining the robust marketplace of ideas so essential to our system of democracy.”

The magistrate judge said the fact that some prospective jurors may become aware of the contents of a document likely to be introduced at trial is not a good enough reason to keep the document confidential.

The NYCLU has said documents already in evidence prove its claims that deliberate police policy decisions led to long detentions of thousands of protesters arrested for minor offenses.

The convention was policed by as many as 10,000 officers from the 36,500-member department, the nation’s largest. They were assigned to protect the city from terrorism threats and to cope with tens of thousands of demonstrators.