Saturday, March 03, 2007

the specter of gray mail

* SDUT:
Wilkes and Foggo, until recently the third highest-ranking CIA official, were indicted by a federal grand jury last month on fraud, conspiracy and money laundering charges stemming from the bribery investigation of jailed former Congressman Randy “Duke” Cunningham...

In yesterday's filing with the court, prosecutors asked for a hearing under the rarely used Classified Information Procedures Act, known as CIPA, to establish rules for the handling of evidence that is designated top secret. They also asked that all defense counsel be required to obtain security clearances.

Prosecutors noted that they were concerned about “the specter of gray mail,” a defendant's practice of trying to derail his prosecution by threatening to disclose classified information in court.

To keep that from happening, Congress enacted the Classified Information Procedures Act in 1980. Under CIPA, the two sides argue before a judge in secret on whether the information is needed for a full defense. If a judge, in this case U.S. District Judge Larry Burns, decides that the defendant is entitled to the information, the government has to decide whether to risk disclosure and proceed, or drop the prosecution."


* booman has a 6 minute piece from Bill Hicks for your viewing pleasure.

* david swanson interviewed athenae about blogs & douglas feith. (30mins)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's interesting that Alberto Gonzales and Carol Lam BOTH spoke to the ABA yesterday here in San Diego.

Hmm.. They didn't talk to each other, AND Gonzales was spewing a lot of BS about "the importance of pursuing corporate and political corruption" according to the article. Can you believe the audacity of that bum?

Hmm.. Still having problems with Firefox. Must be a cookie setting or something locally for my browser specifically. I'll try it again later sometime.