The Alphaville Herald

Why Thank You Federal Prosecutor, that Was Soooo Thoughtful!

by Urizenus Sklar on 08/09/13 at 11:33 pm

While everyone seems to be down on the federal prosecutor who is trying to ring up Barrett Brown for 105 years for sharing a link to a Pirate Bay data dump, I wish to be a contrarian here. I say, hey, the prosecutor actually has Barrett’s best interests at heart. I know this because she said so in making her case for a media gag order on Mr. Brown. You see, the gag order is *not* to protect the prosecution from media scrutiny of its actions in this case. Au contraire! You see, really, they want the gag order to protect Barrett from the bad things that people might say and think about him. As the prosecutor says:

Perhaps without realizing the prejudicial effects on brown the media repeatedly has publicized potentially inadmissible and prejudicial information such as Brown’s … anarchist ideology… troubled childhood and alternative schooling, declaration that he is an atheist, use and abuse of ecstasy, acid, heroin, and marijuana, lack of steady employment, claimed diagnoses of ADHD and depression, associates descriptions of Brown as a junkie, name fag, moral fag, court jester…”

And not only was the prosecutor thoughtful enough to think of all the possible bad things one might say about Barrett, but she took the trouble to write them down so we could have them. And then she put them in a court document. And published it. And then a gag order was placed on Barrett and his defense team. Just so, you know, they wouldn’t damage his reputation by responding to these claims.

prosecutor's gag order: list bad things that might be said, then muzzle the target

Of course the ultimate concern is that all that chatter out there would make it impossible to impanel an impartial jury. Because people in the Dallas region are following this case in sooo religiously (being rabid readers of The Nation and all). And if there are two thing a Texan cannot abide it’s moralfags and namefags! Gosh, I’m so happy I live in a country where politicians appoint kind, thoughtful prosecutors that have everyone’s best interests at heart. Because, you know, if you are sending someone to jail for 105 years you wouldn’t want people to think they are - SHOCK! - an atheist or something.