NSA Hires Franz Kafka as its Attorney

[TonyGosling]

572nd entry: NSA hires Kafka
http://alexfiles.livejournal.com/150704.html
Aug. 13th, 2007 at 12:25 PM

I may be risking my liberty writing this, but I believe I've found evidence that Czech writer Franz Kafka is working for the NSA. The New York Times reports on a case in which the government mistakenly gave Jon Eisenberg, a lawyer representing clients who claim to have been illegally wiretapped by the NSA, proof the wiretapping occurred. Then they took it back. (Similar cases have been dismissed for lack of evidence.)

And ever since, Eisenberg has been unable to properly conduct his case without extraordinary security measures:

a) He can't write about his evidence at his office or home, he has to travel to a "secure facility."

b) He can't keep notes.

c) He can't see the briefs being filed by the government, but he must respond to them anyway.

From the article:
“So, it’s like this,” he [Eisenberg] said in the e-mail message. “Yesterday, under the auspices and control of my litigation adversaries, at their offices and on their computer, I wrote a brief, of which I was not allowed to keep a copy, responding to arguments which I was not permitted to see, which will be met by a reply which I will not be permitted to see.”

From Kafka's The Trial:
But K. should not forget that the trial would not be public, if the court deems it necessary it can be made public but there is no law that says it has to be. As a result, the accused and his defence don't have access even to the court records, and especially not to the indictment, and that means we generally don't know—or at least not precisely—what the first documents need to be about, which means that if they do contain anything of relevance to the case it's only by a lucky coincidence. If anything about the individual charges and the reasons for them comes out clearly or can be guessed at while the accused is being questioned, then it's possible to work out and submit documents that really direct the issue and present proof, but not before. Conditions like this, of course, place the defence in a very unfavourable and difficult position. But that is what they intend. In fact, defence is not really allowed under the law, it's only tolerated, and there is even some dispute about whether the relevant parts of the law imply even that.

And so I say that the NSA has hired Franz Kafka.


A Case So Shielded One Side Is in the Dark
New York Times. Retrieved 13 August 2007 from
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/08/13/us/13bar.html?8ty&emc=ty