[re-arranged for clarity] James A. Donald wrote
Declan's news articles contain nothing that is not better attested by the defendant's own postings.
I believe this is factually incorrect. For example, per the Complaint: "41. On November 11, 2000, an article about the search warrant at BELL's residence was published by Wired News. The article stated that in an interview, BELL acknowledged that he had shown up at the homes of suspected ATF agents ..." I haven't read all of Bell's posting, but I think that was key information not found elsewhere. Moreover, consider juries will be much more comfortable with witness testimony of the sort where someone claims the defendant admitted culpability to them in person, rather than mailing-list messages. You may disagree with this, but again, that's the way the system works in terms of winning cases.
No, it was to cause cost and inconvenience to Declan, to deter people from reporting the kind of stuff than Declan reports.
You have this backwards. The prosecution didn't want to bring Declan into court if they could have avoided it. The Sixth Amendment issues forced them, and the Justice Department rules meant they had to get approval from the Attorney General. This is covered in both their messages and the motion to quash the subpoena. The prosecution was very clear that if they could have avoided a personal appearance, they would have. And a reason for that, is they ran a risk Declan would have disowned his articles on the stand. Their nightmare was something like this: "Jim Bell? Isn't that some sort of exhibit in Philadelphia? Never heard of him. Articles? I write lots of articles. Don't remember the details of them all. I can't attest to my hazy and vague recollections with the solemnity needed in a court of law, to put a man in jail". You have it really backwards if you think they want to deter him from doing this sort of "reporting" in the future. They love it. He gave them solid evidence, with *no* *cross* *examination*. That's a jackpot. And the people possibly next on their list maybe still trust him! They have got to be drooling over what a great resource they have with Declan. But anyway, I have found your views helpful. __ Seth Finkelstein Consulting Programmer sethf@mit.edu http://sethf.com