How the Justice Department screws with a reporter

[Declan McCullagh]

As you know, the Justice Department served me with a subpoena commanding me 
to be in Tacoma, Washington at 9:30 am on Monday, April 2, 
2001:
http://www.mccullagh.org/subpoena/

Because of the judge's schedule, Jim Bell's trial was pushed back one day, 
so now I need to be there Tuesday, April 3, 2001.

Last Wednesday or Thursday, I booked a flight with the Justice Department's 
"Worldtravel" agency, which instructions attached to the subpoena require 
me to do. The flight left from Washington early Monday morning and arrived 
at the Sea-Tac airport at midday PT. I didn't want to risk a later flight 
because of possible weather delays, etc.

When I called United a few minutes ago to make sure the flight was on time, 
I found out that Worldtravel had moved my flight to a Tuesday departure 
that would get into the city that afternoon, *after* the proceedings had 
begun. That could (understandably) piss off the judge -- I'd be violating a 
court order -- not to mention make me miss our motion Tuesday morning to 
quash the subpoena.

Neither the Justice Department, the IRS, the U.S. Attorney's office, nor 
Worldtravel notified me about the change in my schedule.

Worldtravel indicated they believe Jeff Gordon -- the IRS agent who is the 
chief investigator in this case -- is the guy who phoned them and moved my 
flight to Tuesday. That makes sense; he seems to be playing travel agent, 
based on his earlier mail to me:
http://www.mccullagh.org/subpoena/gordon.030901.txt

This really isn't a huge deal. If I showed up at the airport and couldn't 
get on (what I thought was) my flight, I likely would have been able to get 
on another one later in the day Monday. But at least one of the remaining 
flights is sold out, so it's not a sure thing. What this episode does show 
is that IRS agents and prosecutors like to screw with reporters, and a 
subpoena and travel arrangements are just another petty way of doing it.

-Declan