Balco leak uncovered

You do realize you have now so strawmaned yourself in a circle that you are now arguing Ragu's side?

 

OK, again, very slowly so you'll understand, and maybe people also will see how empty Bo and Luke's legal argument might be:

The lawyers all have pledged confidentiality to their clients. You know, in that certification process that journalism does not have? Attorneys have that.

When the defense teams received the information, that wasn't "unsealing" it. It was still intended to be secret.

Apparently someone on the defense team passed it along to Bo and Luke. At that point, it was their choice to make it "public." Had they not published it, it -- and you may want to open your eyes here -- would have remained secret.

The argument that the defense teams' receiving the information somehow made it public seems laughable. If journalists really were about gathering the facts, and not lost in the true Game of Shadows, they might have seized upon this already.

 

You'll have to do better than that. For starters, you'll have to demonstrate where I "claimed there NEVER could be secret information." You will search in vain. I did put forth the proposition that information leaked to journalists is, by definition, not secret. But that is a very different proposition than "there NEVER could be secret information," anywhere, under any circumstances. Remember, it was you, not me, who described the circumstances this way:

Ergo, the information no longer is secret. It was secret up until the moment when the defense attorney released it to journalists. The information ceased to be secret -- so far as the law as it applies to journalists is concerned -- the moment he leaked it. When the information passed into the hands of journalists, the law ceased to have any ability to prevent its publication, so long as the journalists did not employ illegal means to obtain it.

The judge and lawyers in the Balco case know this, of course -- that is to say, they know prior restraint is not an option -- so it's little wonder why, as you put it, prior restraint "has little to nothing to do with the Balco investigation." I never claimed it DID have anything to do with the investigation or that anyone was TRYING to employ prior restraint. But the illegality of prior restraint does help explain why the law is powerless to compel journalists to withhold publication of information that, up until the moment the information was handed to them, was secret. And that, in turn, helps explain why any contempt citation handed down by a judge must confine its scope to compelling the journalists to reveal their source. The fact that prior restraint has not been attempted is not proof that the prohibition of its use is not at work. On this matter, you're guilty of a common logical flaw: confusing evidence of absence with the absence of evidence.

And you'll have to do better than merely assert I have "argued everything under the sun." Unless you have list of particulars -- and a lengthy one, at that, to constitute "everything under the sun" -- your assertion is empty, nothing more than a schoolyard taunt.

And OF COURSE my argument ended with the conclusion that shield laws ought to be more widely adopted. Thank you for noticing. The fact that such a conclusion may be predictable does not undermine its validity. It is possible for a conclusion to be predictable and correct.

 

But see, no one is making that argument.

It was not the "defense teams' receiving the information" that made it public. It was the leaking, by a member of government or the bar, of information to the press that removed the information from official secrecy, so far as the law as it applies to journalists is concerned.

 

Dye,
You've certainly followed an interesting path through this thread. On the one hand, you say a federal shield law that would protect reporters who run stories like BALCO from going to jail are unnecessary. And on the other, you say we need stories like that. Or have you forgotten this exchange a few pages back?

"DyePack, this is not meant to be antogonistic, but I don't get your position. What is a reporter supposed to do when given this information, just sit on it and hope somebody else doesn't get it?
I'm not a wily veteran of the biz, so I'm just looking for another view about what the Chron guys should have done. "

Your response:
"Breaking it like news would be a start."

 

Ragu, you are trying to argue with a troll who needed three consecutive posts to argue a point...
if you ignore fudgepack, you'll feel better. Trust me... he ain't worth the headache...

Borderline nuts? It gives fudgepack a feeling of self-importance he can't get anywhere else.. it's not worth the effort...

 

No one, other than Bo and Luke's attorneys, is making that argument. You seem to have trouble comprehending. I'll post it again:

"They believe that when the U.S. Attorney's office released the grand jury transcripts to the BALCO defense teams, the government removed that information from the domain of the grand jury and put it into the public."

No need to respond to the other posts. We're now down to the heart of the argument. Either the information was public when the defense teams received it, as Bo and Luke's attorneys claim, or it wasn't.

Time either to bring an argument or admit you don't have one.

 

So why don't you?

 

Either the information was public when the defense teams received it, as Bo and Luke's attorneys claim, or it wasn't.

I have a feeling I'll be reposting that quite a bit for the "SHIEEEEEEEEEEELDLAW" yeehawers.

 

Damn, dude, do you read?

The defense teams HAVE the transcripts now. That's the argument Bo and Luke's lawyers are using. Maybe you should stop trying to create some hypothetical bullshit and just look at what happened in this case.

Again, since some refuse to comprehend:

Either the information was public when the defense teams received it, as Bo and Luke's attorneys claim, or it wasn't.