More than ever, it seems Jim's AP system is needed. ks Free, encrypted, secure Web-based email at www.hushmail.com
We offer the court docket of March 23, 2001 and a couple of dozen recent filings, most of them by Jim Bell, with a couple of the judge's orders: http://cryptome.org/jdb032301.htm Here's a sample of the feds and Jim going at it: Jack E. Tanner, US District Judge, ORDER, January 11, 2001: "THE COURT, being advised by the Government of the defendant's (James Bell) stated intention of publishing discovery materials in this case on the Internet, which discovery materials include voluminous private information and personal addresses of various individuals, HEREBY ORDERS that no materials disclosed by the government as part of its discovery obligation shall be shared by defense counsel with the defendant until further notice of the court." ----- Jim Bell, Defendant's Self-Filed Supplemental Response to Government's Proposed Order Concerning Defendant's Access to Discovery Material, March 16, 2001: "Comes now the Defendant, James Dalton Bell, who declares that he is effectively and unwillingly unrepresented, and that his 6th Amendment Right to Counsel has been repeatedly and intentionally violated since on or about December 1, 2000. Defendant Bell has repeatedly sent letters to the court asking for substitute counsel, and two separate motions by attorney Robert Leen have been essentially ignored since mid- December, 2000. 2. The arrogance strongly implied in the government's proposed ORDER GOVERNING DEFENDANTS ACCESS TO DISCOVERY MATERIALS CONTAINING HOME ADDRESSES AND OTHER PERSONAL INFORMATION is truly astounding. (Hereafter I refer to this monstrosity as the Proposed Access Order, or PAD.) 3. The government has said exactly nothing supporting, detailing, or explaining their desires. Which addresses are they trying to "protect"? How many? Whose? For what reason? For how long? Does the government believe that these addresses were somehow obtained "illegally" or that their mere possession is somehow illegal? Why has essentially all discovery material been denied Defendant Bell for 3+ months due merely to a few "addresses"7 4. The government hasn't even said, openly, where this material came from: Defendant Bell suspects that all of the material (at least that portion containing the "addresses" came from the November 6 search and thus, from the Defendant himself by the thinking of the government. Is the government entitled to bar the defendant from doing (legal) things with this information? Permanently? 5. Is the government suggesting that this material or any of it is somehow "illegal information"? Or would the government like it to be considered illegal information? That would certainly explain some of the government's odd behavior over the last 3+ months. 6. Could it be that the real reason this material was taken November 6 had nothing to do with any crime then- suspected or later-charged, but in fact was taken in a ruse? Defendant Bell reminds the Court and government that he has not yet been given an Evidentiary Hearing, which due to the highly unusual specifics of this case must occur many weeks before any anticipated trial. Bell anticipates that this hearing will reveal that all the material taken November 6 will be easily provable to have been entirely-legal information, but taken by an illegally-requested and illegally executed search done by people who intended at all times simply to deprive Bell of his properly-owned information. 7. Defendant Bell concurs with Leen's conclusion that "The Government's proposal is completely unacceptable to the defense." However, Leen's proposed "solution" clearly reflects an inadequate and incomplete level of objection to the government's wholly outrageous proposal. Defendant Bell suggests that America's history and practice of "public trials" with public testimony and public evidence, is supposed to be primarily intended to protect a defendant's rights, but is secondarily and strongly intended to protect the public (and NOT simply the government-employed public!) against crooked government officials and employees and their practices. Indeed, for example one of the most direct impediments to espionage trials is the usual requirement that "classified" evidence must be de-classified to be used at trial. This makes it public information! Prosecutor London is apparently treating this case as if it were a spy trial, but at the same time he is cutting corners, legally, by asking for (and receiving, if the sham continues) the luxury of keeping the "classified information (in reality, people's addresses) secret both during and (presumably?) after trial! So far he won't even say how many such addresses he wishes to protect in this way! (less than a dozen? Hundreds? Thousands?) 8. Even more oddly, London's PAO clearly anticipates showing all of this material to Defendant Bell, presumably including the addresses he wishes to "protect," while the more "obvious" solution in such cases would be to redact (black out in a copy, or cut out, etc) whatever information he doesn't wish Bell to have. While Bell can't endorse either system for obvious reasons, he can at least point out that the latter system would have the major advantage of not impeding his access to the vast majority of materials whe~e there is no arguable problem, including not prohibiting him from even taking notes (!) which would seem to be a thoroughly obnoxious attack on his ability to prepare a competent defense! Defendant Bell has already argued and accused the government in his other filings of simply intending to delay his case and impeding his preparation of his defense for 3+ months (as of 3/10/01) on the flimsy fabricated excuse of denying him access to a few "addresses." If the government is now willing to show him all of discovery including those addresses (but with extreme impediments to his access to and use of all of it, including the vast and presumably non- controversial majority) but is not willing to give him unimpeded access to a redacted version, this will prove beyond all doubt that Bell's accusations were absolutely true." -----
participants (2)
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John Young
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keyser-soze@hushmail.com