BESS's Secret LOOPHOLE (censorware vs. privacy & anonymity)

[Declan McCullagh]

On Wed, Aug 15, 2001 at 07:01:32PM -0700, Tim May wrote:
>  From what I know of the situations, based on journalistic reports (from 
> reports _other_ than from Declan), Declan took the obvious and legal 
> steps to limit his testimony to statements of the form:
> 
> "Yes, I am a reporter for "Wired News.""
> 
> "Yes, I wrote the story you are referring to."
> 
> He was subpoenaed to testify, he and/or his employer hired lawyers to 
> deal with the subpoena and to seek ways to state only things like the 
> above, and, so far as I have ever heard, he did not offer "helpful" 
> suggestions or speculations.

That is correct. I refused to do anything except confirm I wrote the
article (first I hired a lawyer tried to quash the subpoena, but the
judge did not grant our motion). That's why AUSA London asked the
judge to declare me a "hostile witness". My writeup is here:
http://www.politechbot.com/p-01883.html

Naturally I will not reveal conversations I have as part of my
newsgathering role that are confidential, private, on background,
off-the-record, etc. Because my job requires that I be on call 24
hours and many conversations can be potentially related to topics I
cover, I believe it is prudent to take a broad view of what I consider
to be protected from prosecutorial inquiries.

I don't think the transcript is online. I've been planning to
buy it, and I'll get around to it next month.

Anyway, Seth is becoming increasingly deranged; I'm not sure
it's worth taking him seriously even to write a few paragraphs in
reply.

-Declan