FC: Philly dispatch: N2H2 prompts judges to close filtering trial

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

David Burt, usually so talkative (http://www.politechbot.com/p-03012.html), 
was uncharacteristically silent today as he repeatedly referred my 
questions about what was in the secret filings to N2H2's hired guns, who 
wouldn't even say how many pages were in their emergency filing.

Politech archive on CIPA (the federal filtering law in question):
http://www.politechbot.com/cgi-bin/politech.cgi?name=cipa

-Declan

---

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,51309,00.html

   Porn-Filter Judge Boots Public
   By Declan McCullagh (declan () wired com)

   4:00 p.m. March 25, 2002 PST
   PHILADELPHIA -- A trio of federal judges abruptly kicked members of
   the public out of a library filtering trial on Monday, saying they
   feared confidential smut-blocking techniques would be disclosed.

   Filterware vendor N2H2 filed an emergency request to intervene in the
   trial, which began Monday in Federal District court. Company officials
   argued that expert witnesses could leak proprietary data about how the
   company trawls for additions to its catalog of off-color, gambling,
   prurient and other verboten websites.

   N2H2's motion created an unlikely pair of allies: Both the ACLU, which
   filed the lawsuit, and the U.S. Justice Department, which is defending
   it, opposed closing the doors to the 16th-floor courtroom.

   But Edward Becker, the chief judge of the Third Circuit Court of
   Appeals, said he and the other two judges were granting N2H2's
   request. N2H2's products include firewalls that reject connections to
   inappropriate sites.

   [...]




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