FC: EFF plans to help Seattle IMC fight gag order (fwd)

Guilherme C Roschke groschke at luminousvoid.net
Thu Apr 26 07:08:49 PDT 2001


gr at luminousvoid.net http://www.luminousvoid.net

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2001 09:17:20 -0400 From: Declan McCullagh <declan at well.com> To: politech at politechbot.com Subject: FC: EFF plans to help Seattle IMC fight gag order

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,43339,00.html

Journalists Protest Gag Order

By Declan McCullagh (declan at wired.com)

5:00 p.m. April 25, 2001 PDT

WASHINGTON -- The Electronic Frontier Foundation will represent a

Seattle journalist collective that is the target of a police probe and

court-imposed gag order.

On Saturday evening, FBI agents visited the downtown offices of the

Independent Media Center and handed the group a court order --

apparently related to the Quebec City trade summit -- that also

instructed the media organization not to publish the contents of the

order.

That unusual event grabbed the attention of the civil liberties

organization, which is stepping into the fray and hopes to persuade a

federal judge to lift the gag order. Other groups also may be part of

the legal team.

"It is possible that the gag order may come off very soon," says Lee

Tien, an EFF staff attorney. "I would be on the lookout."

[...]

"There are a few limited situations in which there are legal gag

orders," says Doug Honig, public education director for the ACLU's

Washington state chapter. He gave three examples: Testimony before a

grand jury, a trial where the judge tells the attorneys not to give

interviews, and an out-of-court settlement.

"In this situation we don't understand why there was a gag order in

the first place," Honig said. "It certainly shouldn't be the case that

a government official would tell an organization that they can't talk

about a situation.... Based on what we've heard so far, we don't know

why there was a gag order."

[...]

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