🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi everyone.
Here's the report I sent yesterday to EFF board and staff.
Shari


>>Hi everyone.
>>The Steve Jackson Games case finally got underway a little after 1:00 pm
>>today.  There were settlement efforts up until the end, but it turned out
>>the attorneys for the government could not get approval from DC for the
>>terms necessary.  Jim George and Pete Kennedy did a terrific job of
>>representing our plaintiffs in the case.  First they sequestered all
>>witnesses so they couldn't hear each others' stories in attempts to make
>>them match.  Then they called Tim Foley (Secret Service) as the first
>>witness.  They asked him lots of questions about his knowledge at the time
>>of the raid.  He testified that he did not know whether Phrack, with the
>>evil E-911 document, had been sent to SJG.  He also said that he knew that
>>e-mail was on the menu of the BBS, implying that there was e-mail on the
>>system at the time of the seizure (although he denied actually knowing if
>>there was e-mail on the system.  He denied ever making the statement that
>>GURPS Cyberpunk was a handbook for computer crime.  He wouldn't give Steve
>>copies of anything from the machine that ran the BBS because he was afraid
>>it might have been "booby-trapped."  He also didn't know Congress had
>>passed any laws giving special protection during searches to publishers.
>>
>>They next called Larry Coutorie, police officer at the University of Texas.
>> The original affidavit filed by Foley to support the search warrant stated
>>that Coutorie provided the Secret Service with Blankenship's (SJG employee
>>suspected of evil-doing) address and place of business.  Coutorie insisted
>>that he didn't remember doing that, and agreed with Pete Kennedy as he
>>proved that he couldn't have known anything about Blankenship to pass on. 
>>It was a good moment!
>>
>>Barbara Golden, Secret Service in charge of search onsite (Foley was not
>>onsite at the time of the search) was next called.  She started out by
>>admitting that she didn't know anything about computers -- that she had
>>telco people conducting the search under her supervision.  She also didn't
>>know there was a special law for publishers regarding searches.  She was
>>the one who decided to take the entire BBS, but she didn't even check to
>>see what the system contained.  Once she completed the inventory of what
>>was taken, she was no longer involved with the case.
>>
>>Steve Jackson was called next.  He gave a demo of the BBS as it was
>>returned to him by the Secret Service that the judge seemed to really
>>enjoy.  He testified that the Secret Service took 3 computers (1 was
>>completely disassembled - they took the parts), 2 hard disks, and more than
>>300 floppies.  Steve's testimony will continue tomorrow morning.
>>
>>All in all, I think the trial is going quite well.  The judge has a very
>>dry sense of humor and is very down-to-earth -- he's left his robe unzipped
>>the whole trial.  He's not a technoid, but he seems to be trying to
>>understand.  I'll report again tomorrow.
>>Shari
>>
>>
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