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Judge Petitioned To Unseal SCO-IBM Court Records

Posted by timothy on from the whatcha-eatin'-under-there dept.

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."

2 of 301 comments (clear)

  1. "knowing everything" by Triumph+The+Insult+C · · Score: 0, Troll

    ... and I don't think the public has a "right" to know everything.'

    that's bullshit. my tax dollars hard at work and yet i'm not able to see what's going on?

    --
    vodka, straight up, thank you!
  2. Re:So now the truth will emerge by mr_majestyk · · Score: 0, Troll
    Your second paragraph is taken completely out of context. Jones is, and says so, happy about seeing more documents become unsealed: "Naturally, I am of two minds. One, I hope she wins and some things at least get unsealed, because I'm crazy wild to read everything"

    Huh? Talk about taking things out of context! You omitted the very next sentence in her posting, which was: "I don't think the public has a 'right' to know everything. Just because you get sued by some litigious company or individual, it doesn't mean you now belong to the public, hook, line and sinker."

    Groklaw's mission statement contains the following elements:

    ...a journalistic enterprise, with interviews, research, and reporting of events as they unfold...

    ...we strive to present solid facts in rebuttal...

    ...it's an archive of every significant element in the history of the SCO v. IBM, SCO v. Novell, SCO v. AutoZone, SCO v. DaimlerChrysler and Red Hat v. SCO lawsuits, including transcripts of the legal documents filed in plain text, so they can be searched by keyword and so that the blind can have easy access to the information...

    Unsealing the court records supports all of these objectives, so why the resistance? Nowhere is there a caveat that some information should remain sealed for "a reason that seems good". Groklaw claims to be all about "applying open-source principles to research", but it now appears to take a different view when the facts don't support its obvious agenda.