By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Maxwell book
BBC - Honduras - CIA Trial book - NY Mag
SDNY COURTHOUSE, Sept 29 – How does press access to U.S. Federal courts work? How should it?
In the District for the District of Columbia, you're allowed to bring your phone and laptop in. Inner City Press, which does the same most days in the SDNY, has covered proceeding in DDC and then quickly written them up, with laptop and Internet hot spot in the court's cafeteria.
It is different in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, the Brooklyn Federal court. They take your phone, and even, strangely, a laptop USB port. You can apply, case by case, to bring in electronics for a particular trial.
Inner City Press did just that for the 1MDB trial of Roger Ng (with Jho Low on the run) held in EDNY earlier this year.
And it seems straight forward, to apply for a similar pass to bring in phone and laptop to cover the current US v. Thomas Barrack trial before EDNY Judge Brian M. Cogan.
On the first day of trial, September 21, Inner City Press submitted an application to the EDNY Clerk of Court, open 10-1 and 2-3. It was told to wait in the document review room; it gave its Manhattan press pass to be copied in support. Then it was told, a phone call would be coming. That's how it was notified of the US v. Ng pass, so fine. But no call came.
On Thursday, September 22, it asked again at the Clerk of Court and was told, You will be called. With no call by September 28, a week after applying, Inner City Press checked again. It was handed a yellow Post-It note with the number of the EDNY District Executive's office.
Without cell phone, it called from the payphone in the court - only to be told it was not granted, to write a letter to District Executive Eugene J. Corcoran - and that it could only be deliver through the Clerk of Court.
On Thursday September 29, when Inner City Press in EDNY covered not only US v. Barrack but also two sentencings before Judges LeShawn DeArcy Hall and Ann M. Donnelly, it turned in a more detailed letter, attaching a print out from Google News showing Inner City Press' stories prominent in a search for Barrack and Grimes, and in a search for EDNY. On that basis, it is requesting an on-going hard-pass.
At 4:30 pm when the Barrack trial day was over it called the DE's office - but it was closed. It left a voice mail, wanting to bring laptop to cover Friday's proceedings. Now what? It's nine days into the trial. Watch this site.
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