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[FYI] (Fwd) FC: Judge hears U.S. v. Scarfo PGP-spying case; secret t




------- Forwarded message follows -------
Date sent:      	Tue, 31 Jul 2001 14:37:45 -0400
To:             	politech@politechbot.com
From:           	Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>
Subject:        	FC: Judge hears U.S. v. Scarfo PGP-spying case; secret trial to
 	come?
Send reply to:  	declan@well.com

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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