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Judge Petitioned To Unseal SCO-IBM Court Records
An anonymous reader writes "Groklaw is reporting that Maureen O'Gara has applied to the judge to open all and any filings or transcipts that till now have been sealed by the Utah district court hearing the SCO Group's $5 billion suit against IBM. Groklaw's Pamela Jones notes that 'O'Gara believes the public can't understand the case, because of the sealing' and some of the Groklaw.net members seem to agree that, that since in the U.S. any citizen has a right to review court records in order to monitor the performance of a judge, that O'Gara's 'motion to intervene' will most likely succeed." An anonymous reader writes that Jones last night said of the request "that she is 'of two minds' about the filing: 'I'm crazy wild to read everything. But on the other hand, the court and the parties wouldn't seal things without a reason that seems good to them. I believe in privacy, personally, and I don't think the public has a "right" to know everything.' The legal filing to unseal everything has not yet become available via Pacer."
I dont think that their trade secrets should become public. However I do feel that the people have a right to be informed about civil suits, especially with recent abuses of them (i.e. suing users of file sharing programs, poor use of software patents). Hopefully public access to these kinds of records might encourage them to keep their lawsuits more reasonable.
Philosophy.
Actually, as a person following this case, the thing that is sealed, and that O'Gara is filing to have unsealed (digression: I've not read the motion, so I can't say exactly what she's asking to have unsealed. But given her past writings on the subject I pretty sure I know what she's after), is an internal IBM memo that SCO contends shows evidence of IBM fraud in their dealings with oldSCO's project to port unixware to itanium. IBM claims to have provided the memo on accident, and that it is a privledged document that should not have been given to SCO. SCO basically agrees that it's not admisible evidence, but touts it as evidence that they need more discovery before IBM's summary judgement motions should be heard.
I'm all for open records, but in this case I don't want the seal to be lifted, and here's why.
SCO has been chomping at the bit to release this letter. They have made many references to it in their filings. They even read bits of the letter *aloud* in open court - the judge has since ordered that the transcript be sealed. But there were journalists there, and O'Gara (even though she was not there) has basically reported what was said --- despite the fact that SCO basically violated a court order when they read it.
This whole sorry business seems like a SCO orchestrated attempt to try and make IBM look bad, and I'm wholeheartedly against it. SCO's misconduct should not be rewarded; the seal should not be lifted.
You say
I don't think she was saying people don't have the right to pursue information, just that not all information should be made public. I took it to mean that whether or not the records should be released depends on the nature of the information that caused them to be sealed in the first place.
She is just saying that certain information should remain private. The public does not have a right to access all types of information. Do I have a right to know your SSN? Or view your medical records? No. That is privileged information that need not be divulged for public review.
While that example is only valid in an individual sense, the same reasoning can be applied to a corporate setting. If the court discussed information that is within the rights of SCO and/or IBM to retain as private, the public does not have an implicit right to demand access to that. If on the other hand someone just wants to hide the skeletons in the closet, then perhaps more public proceedings are called for.
Linuxgram part of G2News and claims to "broken most of the key stories in Linux since it was started several years ago." Her version of "news" includes stuff like this tidbit where she breathlessly reports that some guy -- shown two pieces of code with no background or research (and under a non-disclosure agreement no reputable journalist would sign) -- declares them to be the same. That and numerous similar examples show that her "inside information" is obvious; she's sucking up to SCO by spinning the story their way. In return, they give her "inside information" -- which amounts to trivia like this; who they hired for a lawyer or how much they plan to charge for SCOSource -- so she can claim an exclusive story. This isn't journalism, it's pandering.
Kind of reminds me of the old Daily Show slogan, "When news breaks, we fix it."
Except for O'Gara it's more like, "When no news breaks, we invent some."
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
On the otherhand, SCO *does* have a very good track record at stalling their various court cases and launching off on tangents that ultimately lead nowhere but consume yet more time. So, suppose the have Maureen ask for the records, what's likely to happen next? Presumably the judge will have to consult with SCO and IBM's lawyers, time will pass, but they quite likely are going to end up giving her the response "no". So, unless things are very definite, Maureen can now ask for just some of the records to be disclosed. The judge then (she hopes) goes back to the lawyers and lengthy arguments ensue about which documents each side should, or should not, disclose.
Also, I wonder if there is anything more that coincidence behind the fact that this should come to light so soon after SCO received a setback in its legal proceedings. Funnily enough, SCO just had its motion to stay the Daimler-Chrysler case until after the conclusion of the IBM case denied... I find it very interesting that this should be announced just one day after SCO lost the ability to use the IBM cases as a brake in another of its lawsuits.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
This is now a public issue, it has been brought into the courts. There is nothing going on here that should not be in the light of day if someone wants to wade through all the court docs.
Rubbish. We've no idea what material either side in this case has sealed, for obvious reasons, but *every* business of any size has confidential stuff that's worth real money to it and that it takes care not to share (business and product plans, for example). What sort of justice system would it be that penalized the wronged party in a civil suit (whether they're bringing it or defending against it) by forcing them to give away confidential information to all and sundry as the price of justice?
I believe in privacy, personally, and I don't think the public has a "right" to know everything.'
Companies should never have the same rights as people, they need to be held accountable for their actions. And they wont do that unless business pratices are made open to the public.
Not picking on you per se (since everyone else in this thread is saying the same thing), but I don't think PJ actually accused O'Gara of lying. It's more like the rest of what you said. She reported that what O'Gara said didn't match any of the eyewitness accounts, so clearly somebody was wrong. But whether it was O'Gara who was wrong, or the eyewitnesses, PJ didn't definitely say since she wasn't there. Of course, the implication is clear, but the actual accusation was not directly made, if I recall correctly.
Removing corporate personhood would hurt consumers in many ways as well. For instance, if GM makes a faulty product that injures you, if a they're not a person, who do you sue? You'd have to go after every individual, who is not going to have the funds available to pay for your damages anyway. Or, you could sue each individual shareholder.
It's a double-edged sword, but if you learn more about it, you might realize it does more good than harm.
What?
According to this ip-wars.net story, this 13-page pdf of images is the motion to intervene. A comment at ip-wars contains a text transcription.
With the possible exception of the O.J. trial, this must be the most embarrassing court case the U.S. has had to suffer through in front of an international audience. It took the German legal system, what, a week to bitch-slap SCO? And they didn't even dare try any of this crap in countries like Britain.
So just what will it take for an American judge to finally throw this whole pile out? Why does SCO get to spread rumors that hurt the business of RedHat, IBM, and Novell for months and months without one single bit of hard evidence? This is not a game, it is about real money that is being lost because of FUD, real damage to product images and real smears to reputations. Just why does the judge get to wait forever to get something, anything done?
If P.J. has convinced anybody of anything, it is that the rest of the democratic countries can thank heaven that they are not stuck with the 18th Century anachronism we Americans pretend is a real, functioning legal system. Care to hazard a guess how much the lawyers have made on this already?
First off, there is a balance between the right to privacy and the right to know.
Secondly, hasn't it occurred to anyone that SCO has been asking for an awful lot of company confidential material from IBM? With "awful lot" I mean to the point of being rediculous and apparently completely irrelevant to the case itself.
Given the ease by which bits of confidential information appears to make it into the public (like the reading out of IBM data in court despite a judge's order to stop it) I would, as IBM, feel rather concerned - these are, after all, their business secrets. And sorry, you *don't* have a right to know those. Otherwise go and ask Microsoft for the same, they're in court more often AFAIK.
I agree you/me/planet ought to have full access to court proceedings, but I think SCO is demonstrating quite clearly how this can potentially be abused. Given the origin of some of their financial backing I guess it's imported expertise.
Now, back to the journo, I have no idea what her motive is, but I remain unconvinced this has anything to do with real journalism.
Disclaimer: all of this IMHO, and IANAL etc..
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