During an appeal over the US Presidential Records Act, a judge asked whether the government’s position would let a president sell national-security records on eBay. DOJ maintained that the act is unconstitutional and that presidential papers belong to the president. Civil-society groups criticize privatization of the records as a threat to public access. DOJ’s formal legal opinion and courtroom argument are not a judicial ruling permitting the sale of secrets or evidence that such a sale occurred. The dispute concerns legal controls over preservation and ownership of presidential records.