Some current and former agency officials said the inquiry was improper because it could be viewed as an effort to influence investigations.
The Supreme Court ruled that the judgment against the newspaper was improper because it had failed to give adequate weight to the value of freedom of expression.
Blair Horner, of the New York Public Interest Research Group, said whether or not the e-mail correspondence from Mary L. Hines, a deputy commissioner in the Labor Department, was illegal, it was improper because it included Ms. Hines's state e-mail address and office telephone number.
Union officials maintained that his sitting on the Continental board was improper, because it gave him access to inside information that Mr. Bonderman could use in his business dealings with other airlines.
He has said Patrick's placement, at the Cresson Secure Treatment Center in central Pennsylvania, is improper because it is too far away for Patrick's parents to play a role in his rehabilitation and because until recently Patrick was receiving essentially no education.
"But it's improper, because it's similar to the language used by Hitler's propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels".
This procedure is "improper" because it does not propagate the uncertainty inherent in parameter estimation (Little and Rubin 2002).
Responding to the scandal-ette last week, Doug Heye, a Republican spokesman, said the visit to Voyeur — where the party dropped $1,946 — was improper "because of the venue".
The lawsuit by Starr, A.I.G.'s largest shareholder, says the accord may be improper because A.I.G. agreed to make restitution to at least three states where it never sold workers' compensation coverage.
"For us to redirect funds from saving animals across the earth would be improper because people gave to those international programs.
