NSA Trial Evidence 'Riddled With Boxes and Arrows'

decora writes "In the Espionage Act trial of NSA IT Whistleblower Thomas Drake, the main evidence against him are five documents he allegedly 'willfully retained' in his basement. The government, for the first time, is using the Silent Witness Rule to 'substitute' words in this evidence so that the public will not be able to see the allegedly sensitive information. The result of this 'substitution' process has been described by the defense as a tangled mess of boxes, arrows, and code words [PDF] that will impossibly confuse the facts of the case. 'Two weeks before trial, Mr. Drake and his counsel still do not know what evidence the jury will see.'"

Comments

Rights?

[cyrano.mac]

The rights of the American people are eroding at an alarming rate. It's not new, it has happened before, so we have to conclude that history doesn't really teach us anything.

Re:Rights?

[Samantha Wright]

If you missed it,a few weeks ago here we had another story about Drake. The story of his case is less of an impenetrable vast state chasing him and more like a handful of people whom he knew from his previous job (critical point: at the NSA) trying to manipulate the law to get him put away for whistleblowing on the NSA's spying program—which he claims he didn't even actually do.

This guy's problems are way more Orwellian than anything the average citizen has ever experienced in the United States. Read the New Yorker article I linked to, and you'll gain a new appreciation for why the government has become so messed up over the past decade. Men with no oversight are doing what they will in the name of national security because they've convinced themselves that they can't permit 9/11 to reoccur, and that it was their fault. They've driven themselves mad, falling into the mentality of "those who prefer security to freedom." It's not that they're innately cruel tyrants, or sadists, it's that they're paranoid and guilt-wracked—a horribly dangerous combination when you add on the "defend the collective" mentality that causes police officers to protect each other when corruption charges manifest.

Re:Rights?

[gilgongo]

When they reach the point that every family "on the dole" has multiple surveillance cameras throughout their homes, then we will have reached 1984.

Orwell's portrayal of cameras in homes was simply one of many, many totalitarian ideas he wove into the story. A large number of them exist today (the most obvious examples being pacification of the "proles" by means of 24-hour media, and constant war with vague enemies about vague things). To say that we won't have his version of society until we have that one thing is pretty odd. That's like saying we won't have Christmas until somebody gets drunk.

This Comment

[Haedrian]

[See Reference 1] "FALCON" [Page 2.3, line 8] REDACTED your mom

small note on possible COI & wikipedia link

[decora]

I generally avoid linking to wikipedia articles that I wrote from slashdot articles that I wrote, to avoid perceived conflict of interest, and prevent 'one source' circular errors and hidden bias. In this /. story, I did not originally link to the wikipedia Silent Witness Rule article. The link to wikipedia was made by the slashdot editors and not by me, and they had no reason to suspect that the article author and wikipedia author were the same person.

Re:Leaked copy of the document

[Servaas]

This is grown up talk, 4chan is that way ->

Tangled mess of ..

[PPH]

...boxes, arrows and code words.

For some reason, this reminds me of:

We walked in, sat down, Obie came in with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, sat down. Man came in said, "All rise." We all stood up, and Obie stood up with the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures, and the judge walked in sat down with a seeing eye dog, and he sat down, we sat down. Obie looked at the seeing eye dog, and then at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, and looked at the seeing eye dog. And then at twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one and began to cry, 'cause Obie came to the realization that it was a typical case of American blind justice, and there wasn't nothing he could do about it, and the judge wasn't going to look at the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one explaining what each one was to be used as evidence against us. And we was fined $50 and had to pick up the garbage in the snow, but thats not what I came to tell you about.

From Alice' Restaurant by Arlo Guthrie.