FC: Judge hears U.S. v. Scarfo PGP-spying case; secret trial to come?

[Declan McCullagh <declan@well.com>]

Some background:
http://www.epic.org/crypto/scarfo.html
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,40541,00.html
http://www.politechbot.com/p-01545.html

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http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45730,00.html

    How Far Can FBI Spying Go?
    By Declan McCullagh (declan@wired.com)
    9:00 a.m. July 31, 2001 PDT

    NEWARK, New Jersey -- Nicodemo S. Scarfo is not merely an affable
    computer aficionado, the son of Philadelphia's former mob boss and an
    alleged mastermind of a loan shark operation in New Jersey.

    He's also the defendant in a case that could -- depending on how a
    federal judge rules in the next few weeks -- dramatically expand the
    government's powers to spy on Americans or restrict police to
    traditional techniques.

   To hear federal prosecutors tell it, the FBI became so frustrated by
    Scarfo's use of Pretty Good Privacy software (PGP) to encode
    confidential business data that they had to resort to extraordinary
    means. With a judge's approval, FBI agents repeatedly snuck into
    Scarfo's business to plant a keystroke sniffer and monitor its output.

    On Monday, prosecutors and defense attorneys gathered in Newark's
    federal courthouse -- an oasis of modern design and
    skylight-punctuated ceilings surrounded by decaying tenements -- to
    wrangle over whether such an unusual investigative technique violates
    privacy rights.

    U.S. District Judge Nicholas Politan saved his sharpest needling for
    the assistant U.S. attorney prosecuting the case, asking how a court
    could accept the government's earnest assurances that its spy
    technology is permitted by federal law and the Bill of Rights.

    [...]

   For their part, the Feds believe so strongly in keeping this
    information secret that they've hinted they may invoke the Classified
    Information Procedures Act (CIPA) if necessary. That 1980 law says
    that the government may say that evidence requires "protection against
    unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national security."

    If that happens, not only will observers be barred from the courtroom,
    but the trial could move to a classified location. Federal security
    procedures say that if a courtroom is not sufficiently secure, "the
    court shall designate the facilities of another United States
    Government agency" as the location for the trial.

    Prosecutors said in court documents that while they haven't yet
    invoked those security provisions, "the United States reserves the
    right, however, at some later date to re-assert all CIPA issues." (The
    judge has already imposed a gag order on attorneys in this case.)

    [...]




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