DOJ jails reporter, Ashcroft allows more journalist subpoenas

Trei, Peter ptrei at rsasecurity.com
Mon Jul 30 13:54:42 PDT 2001


> ----------
> From: 	Black Unicorn[SMTP:unicorn at schloss.li]
	>From: <mmotyka at lsil.com> wrote
> > Declan,
> > The larger problem notwithstanding there's at least one little bit of
> > language in this piece that is odd :
> >
> >   "He said the government is
> >    seeking all of Leggett's
> >    material, including all
> >    originals and copies."
	[...]
> >
> > Looks like a reporter ( or anyone else for that matter ) should keep
> > well hidden backups of their notes and work so that they can comply with
> > Napolean complexes, fishing expeditions and spin control operations and
> > not lose their life's work.
> 
> No.  Well hidden backups would put the reporter in a position of contempt,
> committing obstruction of justice or perjury.  Better to escrow such
> documents
> with an attorney in a jurisdiction not likely to cooperate with the United
> States.  (I can suggest several to interested parties privately).
> 
I'm curious what the term 'copy' refers to when the Internet and encryption
gets involved. If  a reporter posted an encrypted copy of her notes 
to usenet on a regular basis, she could recover them anytime, 
anywhere, from etin.com,  dejanews, or any of the other news 
archiving services. 

However, if ordered to 'turn over all originals and copies', what can she 
do? Ask deja to dismount a drive and send it to the court? Ask the 
NSA to please gather up all their tapes which had copies and send 
them?

Isn't there an implied and anachronistic assumption here that a 
requested private document is physically seperable from other
private documents, and that to be private a document has to be
under the authors physical control? And that there is a meaningful
distinction between an 'original' and a 'copy'?

This comes of a the same problem we find with so much of the
IP arguement, that information exists only bound to some
physical object, and shares it's limitations. 

I can only assume that the court, for reasons which seem unclear
but which seem to amount to punishment, wish to deny her
access to her own work. If many copies exist which are
readable only by her, but not under her control, how can
she be so deprived? (I suppose the court could order her to
forget her passphrase :-)

[I'm not addressing the issue of forced exposure of keys, just
the information-theoretic notion of destroying or sequestering 
widely distributed information, and how that collides with the 
assumptions of ill-educated or maleific judges] 

Peter Trei





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