Spoilation, escrows, courts, pigs. Was: Re: DOJ jails reporter, Ashcroft allows more journalist subpoenas

[Dr. Evil]

> There are legitimate purposes for escrowing it on the Isle of Man
> over and above keeping it out of a court's hands.  The key is to
> have _some_ leg to stand on when asked "if not trying to thwart the
> authority of this court, why did you do that."  Good answers might
> sound like: "I wanted the proceeds of the manuscripts sale protected
> in trust for my grandchildren."  "I wanted the negotiations to be
> handled by the same attorney that manages my spendthrift trust" (You
> do have one, right?)  "I wanted to publish it anonymously, and
> needed a good attorney in a jurisdiction with strong confidentiality
> statutes to accomplish that end.  I had no idea that the irrevocable
> trust was so far reaching that it would deny access to a legitimate
> judicial proceeding, your honor..."  I'm not sure there are many
> arguments for using freenet other than "I knew you pigs were going
> to try and grab it so I sent it far, far away."

Some reasonable legal advice on the c'punk list!  Amazing!

M. Unicorn, I could sugest a few valid reasons for posting it on
freenet:

"Your honor, freenet is a system which backs up data on multiple
servers.  I thought the document was extremely important, and that was
the most reasonable way I could find to ensure that it is not lost."

"Your honor, this document describes the situation in Tibet/democracy
in Taiwan/Falun Gong, and I wanted to make it available to the
citizens of China, and Freenet seemed like the most reasonable way."

"I wanted to publish it.  Freenet is an alternative to using a more
expensive or difficult web server."

Would some of these be convincing to a judge?

Btw, if the defendant had any reason to believe that the document
might soon be the subject of a court proceeding, and he then placed it
out of his control in a trust, he would be in just as much trouble as
if he had used any c'punk methods.  It would be called a "fradulent
conveyance", right?