Ghent

ORDER *

The issues before us revolve around the opening paragraph of the order filed April 2, 2003, modifying the protective order, which provides as follows:

1. The above order is a supportable exercise of the district court’s discretionary authority to protect items covered by the attorney-client privilege and the attorney work product doctrine. See Bittaker v. Woodford, 331 F.3d 715, 727 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc). The parties do not disagree that the court has such authority, in general, but they disagree about the potential application of the foregoing paragraph.

2. The second sentence permissibly states that the federal hearing, without more, did not waive the above privileges, which is consistent with Bittaker .

3. As for the third sentence, we construe it (a) not to require or direct of its own force the sealing of any part of the writ proceedings and (b) not to list exhaustively other exceptions that the district court may deem appropriate when questions about specific applications of the order are presented to it.

So construed, we affirm the order.

We do not have before us at this time any sealing order entered by the district court based on the protective order.…