Tuesday, June 10, 2014

"So, why sweep the court for bugs if you post it on the Internet?"

The U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals took a judicial mulligan Monday after staff failed last week to follow standard practice and record what was supposed to be the only such hearing in a terrorist case touching on surveillance issues broached by Edward Snowden.

The rare do-over of oral arguments at a U.S. appellate court started slowly with one judge even saying she would try and carefully recreate as best she could the questions she asked the parties in the unrecorded hearing...

Officials said last week that workers responsible for turning on a court recorder at the initial hearing were startled by U.S. agents who swept the room for bugging devices and so assumed — wrongly — that all recordings were prohibited. A recording of Monday's hearing was successfully made and promptly posted on the court website later in the afternoon. (more)