IP: Judge hears U.S. v. Scarfo PGP-spying case; secret trial to come?

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

> Some background:
> http://www.epic.org/crypto/scarfo.html
> http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40541,00.html
> http://www.politechbot.com/p-01545.html
>
> **********
>
> http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45730,00.html
>
>    How Far Can FBI Spying Go?
>    By Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com)
>    9:00 a.m. July 31, 2001 PDT
>
>    NEWARK, New Jersey -- Nicodemo S. Scarfo is not merely an affable
>    computer aficionado, the son of Philadelphia's former mob boss and an
>    alleged mastermind of a loan shark operation in New Jersey.
>
>    He's also the defendant in a case that could -- depending on how a
>    federal judge rules in the next few weeks -- dramatically expand the
>    government's powers to spy on Americans or restrict police to
>    traditional techniques.
>
>   To hear federal prosecutors tell it, the FBI became so frustrated by
>    Scarfo's use of Pretty Good Privacy software (PGP) to encode
>    confidential business data that they had to resort to extraordinary
>    means. With a judge's approval, FBI agents repeatedly snuck into
>    Scarfo's business to plant a keystroke sniffer and monitor its output.
>
>    On Monday, prosecutors and defense attorneys gathered in Newark's
>    federal courthouse -- an oasis of modern design and
>    skylight-punctuated ceilings surrounded by decaying tenements -- to
>    wrangle over whether such an unusual investigative technique violates
>    privacy rights.
>
>    U.S. District Judge Nicholas Politan saved his sharpest needling for
>    the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case, asking how a court
>    could accept the government's earnest assurances that its spy
>    technology is permitted by federal law and the Bill of Rights.
>
>    [...]
>
>   For their part, the Feds believe so strongly in keeping this
>    information secret that they've hinted they may invoke the Classified
>    Information Procedures Act (CIPA) if necessary. That 1980 law says
>    that the government may say that evidence requires "protection against
>    unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national security."
>
>    If that happens, not only will observers be barred from the courtroom,
>    but the trial could move to a classified location. Federal security
>    procedures say that if a courtroom is not sufficiently secure, "the
>    court shall designate the facilities of another United States
>    Government agency" as the location for the trial.
>
>    Prosecutors said in court documents that while they haven't yet
>    invoked those security provisions, "the United States reserves the
>    right, however, at some later date to re-assert all CIPA issues." (The
>    judge has already imposed a gag order on attorneys in this case.)
>
>    [...]



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