--- Subject: RE: [Politech] Justice Department screws up: doesn't redact FOIAdocument Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 00:39:14 -0800 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.0.5762.3 From: "Clinton D. Fein" <clinton.fein@private> To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan@private> X-VBS-Filter-Version: 1.14 (well.com modified) (smtp) How funny. It's not only technology that results in the Justice Department screwing up on redacted documents. Laziness or inefficient proofreading can also be a problem. In the United States v. ApolloMedia, the government fought tooth and nail to prevent ApolloMedia from unsealing records that they claimed would jeopardize a criminal investigation in which Annoy.com was alleged to have been used, and for which reason they had subpoenaed the identity of our users. Even after the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals questioned the constitutionality of the gag order that had also been imposed, and had forced the DOJ to admit that the investigation was no longer even active, the DOJ sought to retain the gag insofar as it pertained to releasing the identity of the alleged victim. While there is no legislation we were aware of that requires any entity, particularly in a journalistic context, to refrain from using the name of an alleged victim (victim of an alleged threat, not rape), the government's redacted version mistakenly revealed the very name they were so strenuously objecting to being released. In the end, I redacted the name for them -- only after having won the right to unseal the entire record first. Clinton _________________________ Clinton Fein President ApolloMedia Corporation 555 Florida Street, Suite 407 San Francisco, CA 94110 Phone: 415-552-7655 Fax: 415-552-7656 http://apollomedia.com/ _________________________ _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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