Declan McCullagh and prosecutions

[Seth Finkelstein]

[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 at mit.edu  http://sethf.com