Clinton Fein on DOJ, CDA, and Annoy.com [fs]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

---

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 () apollomedia com>
To: "Declan McCullagh" <declan () well com>
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/)