Word: subpoenae
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Both affidavits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in support of a motion to quash a Federal grand jury subpoena served on Chomsky. The grand jury Chomsky was called before is officially investigating the release and distribution of the Pentagon Papers...
Chomsky moved to quash his subpoena on the grounds that his mere appearance before the grand jury would jeopardize his work as an independent scholar-journalist by weakening his ability to guarantee confidentiality to his sources of information. Like two other subpoenaed witnesses--Richard Folk, professor of international law at Princeton and Leonard S. Rodberg, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and an aide to Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska)--Chomsky argued that his forced appearance would thus violate the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of the press...
Federal judge W. Arthur Garrity, Jr., before whom Chomsky's "case" has been argued, has rejected the First Amendment argument as grounds for quashing Chomsky's subpoena. Apparently, he does not feel that Chomsky's sources of information would be jeopardized by his appearance before the grand jury...
However, Chomsky also filed a second motion, in which he argued that he has reason to believe that some of his telephone conversations have been tapped and therefore that his subpoena may have sprung from illicitly obtained evidence. In the final section of his affidavit, which is not printed here, he presented the bases for his suspicions. One was that the phones of the organization RESIST, which he co-founded and often calls from elsewhere are very likely tapped, since the government has apparently even searched its trash; another was that he has spoken to a number of the Harrisburg...
Falk's hearing will continue this morning at 9:30 a.m. Federal Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr., will also hear arguments on a motion filed by Idella Marx. Ellsberg's mother-in-law, who is seeking release from her subpoena...