Already censored article of prosecutors fighting Brent Wilkes' "secret benefactor"'s bail

[cascadiance]

This might not stay long, so I'm going to cut and paste the article from Yahoo's cached link. Google's cached link doesn't provide anything...

Google search:
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http://www.google.com/search?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&client=firefox-a&um=1&hl=en&q=Feds%20fight%20Wilkes'%20secrecy%20request&sa=N&tab=nw
http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:-M9kMGeCbnoJ:www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/07/17/news/sandiego/z273c32ecbb84d3ee882574890003e5ba.txt+Feds+fight+Wilkes%27+secrecy+request&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

News search:

http://news.google.com/news?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&hl=en&q=Feds%20fight%20Wilkes'%20secrecy%20request&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wn

Yahoo search:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=Feds+fight+Wilkes%27+secrecy+request&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8
http://cache.search.yahoo-ht2.akadns.net/search/cache?ei=UTF-8&p=Feds+fight+Wilkes%27+secrecy+request&fr=yfp-t-501&u=www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/07/17/news/sandiego/z273c32ecbb84d3ee882574890003e5ba.txt&w=feds+fed+federal+fed%27s+fight+fighting+fights+wilkes+secrecy+request&d=NHRsRC72RJS0&icp=1&.intl=us

which yields:

Gavel to Gavel: Feds fight Wilkes' secrecy request
Feds fight Wilkes' secrecy request

| Wednesday, July 16, 2008 9:45 PM PDT ∞

Federal prosecutors are fighting Brent Wilkes' request that the court keep secret the name of a benefactor willing to cover some of his bail.

Wilkes, a Poway man convicted last year of bribing former U.S. Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, is asking U.S. District Judge Larry Alan Burns to approve that secrecy condition. Otherwise, the benefactor won't provide the money to help free Wilkes, who has been jailed since February.

On Wednesday, prosecutors with the U.S. attorney's office in San Diego asked Burns to reject the request and make the man's name public should he provide bail money for Wilkes.

"The government believes that the sealing of traditionally open proceedings, which may prove crucial to securing the defendant’s release, will only raise the specter of undue influence and favoritism being exercised on behalf of a formerly well-heeled, white collar criminal that would not be afforded to his less-advantaged fellow felons," according to a brief filed by the prosecutors.

Money from the would-be benefactor would bridge Wilkes' shortfall in making his $1.4 million bail. If he makes bail, the 54-year-old Wilkes would be released from custody as he appeals his conviction.

Burns has set a hearing on the matter for July 28.

---- Teri Figueroa

Here's the previous story that the NC Times had on this the day before...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=3621066

[wildbilln864]

1. a definite k&r! thanks. nt

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

2. He has many benefactors. Read this.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/3/19/14388/5268

At one time I was postive he was the link that would unravel the entire tapestry.

This is also worth reading.


http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?articleId=12612

[leveymg]

5. Cheney's OVP "furniture" contract was source for Wilkes' $140K bribe to Cunningham

One degree of separation in a very unusual procurement contract (Wilkes wasn't a furniture dealer) - enough for a Grand Jury to call Cheney.

Wilkes and Wade's companies were really intelligence contractors - fronts for the production of false intel that was feeding the OSP-OVP stovepipe that justified the Iraq invasion. Wade's MZM was also funding Iranian dissident groups in preparation for Phase II of the great Middle East oil takedown. Further, these companies were also part of the Army's warrantless domestic spying apparatus being run out of Ft. Belvoir. Cheney was right at the center of that spiderweb. Zero degrees of separation. Indict Dick.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

6. I know, this one seemed so simple and clear. nt

[Mnemosyne]

3. Needs more R and

:kick:

[bluesmail]

4. Friday has become my favorite day of the week for news.

We want to know who posted Wilkes bail, GD it. Please make it public, please.

[gratuitous]

7. Well, isn't THAT interesting?

Someone's willing to go Brent Wilkes' bail, but in the true spirit of Christian charity, doesn't want to do so publicly. Golly, such selflessness just warms the cockles of my black old heart.

I have never heard of such a thing before. And if I was the judge, I'd double Wilkes' bail on the spot. When it's someone else's money getting a convicted felon out of jail, the flight risk has to go way, way up. No, Brent Wilkes is right where he should be pending his appeal. Other crooks and criminals have to sit in stir after being convicted by 12 good persons and true. Brent should just suck it up, and ponder the error of his ways.

[mmonk]

8. Thanks. In heavily censored countries like the US, its best to make

records while one can. The Wilkes story is important.

[cascadiance]

9. You know this article makes me wonder if we should hae another "news bot" that looks in caches...

of Google, Yahoo, and other search engines, when articles get censored like this, and then creates its own cache that's accessable as "news stories", complete with time sorting, etc.

The problem is that when these articles currently get censored the way they do, unless you catch them quickly, they sometimes get pulled out of the news search engine altogether, and from the news search indexes in google and yahoo, they don't have "cached" links. I've found though that if you look up significant keywords from the article title or the article summary there in quotes on the web search from, that is where you can get the cached version of the article. This is something that of course most of us don't think to do except in circumstances that we notice.

Now it would be cool if you could turn loose a "bot" that spots unresolved links in the google and yahoo news search hits (censored or removed articles), and then tries to find them in their web searches and cached links following that, and constructs a new "news index" solely on cached articles.

THAT would be an interesting thing to browse with time sorting on each morning to see what a lot of the media sites are taking down quickly! I suppose though if you built a site for doing this, you'd have to get some legal consultation to make sure that you won't get sued for doing this. Seems though that in my book that once it's on the web, it's news.

[leveymg]

10. Wayback Machine does that, if you have the URL or are willing to dig

I've used Wayback many times to find an original article that's been subsequently scrubbed. If you don't have the URL, you can usually find it with a date if you know the site where it was posted.

Happy digging. :)