'More Names Will Come Out,' Lawyer in D.C. Escort Case Vows

But Kessler's decision Thursday to lift the order apparently changed all that. In her ruling, Kessler wondered why prosecutors "exhibited such a strong interest in protecting a list containing the telephone numbers of unindicted co-conspirators."

Palfrey, who has been free on personal recognizance, did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment yesterday. Prosecutors declined to discuss the latest developments.

Sibley said he received hundreds of calls late last week from news organizations and others, "from Russia to China," who wanted the records. He said he and Palfrey decided to release the numbers "because we were advised people were selling the list online and the potential for manipulating it to falsely include numbers was quite real."

"We wanted an official list up there," Sibley said, "and to confirm or deny if someone's phone number was on the list."

Sibley said Palfrey needs as many names as possible to aid in her criminal defense. He described her as "a patriotic kind of girl from western Pennsylvania" who thinks citizens should know what their public officials are up to.

Price, of Citizens for Legitimate Government, said she received a computer disk from Sibley "by snail mail" Monday that contained the full phone records. Since then, she said, she and three others have been trying to put names to the numbers, using Google and other Internet search engines.

"We're not going to harass anybody," Price said.

Citizens for Legitimate Government was established in December 2000 "in the aftermath of what we perceive as the stolen 2000 presidential election," Price said. She became interested in the alleged D.C. madam case and began exchanging e-mails with Palfrey a while back, she said. She had to sign "a little contract" that promised not to profit from the records or post Palfrey's relatives' numbers.

"We were interested to see, with some of the family-values GOP stars, if there was any kind of contradiction to their daily life and what they're espousing in public," Price said. "We're not here to hurt people. The hypocrisies are what we're exposing."

She added that she will also post the names of liberal-leaning officials if she finds them. "If one is doing an investigation, what I find out may not be what I want, but I'm not censoring to defend liberals," she said.

Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.