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Important Message for Legal Observers
December 26th, 2003
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Dear NLG Legal Observer:
Thank you for your work as an National Lawyers Guild (NLG) Legal
Observer (LO) at the demonstrations against the Free Trade Area of the
Americas in Miami in November 2003. The NLG's Mass Defense Committee
trained and coordinated dozens of Legal Observers in Miami as part of
our work with the Miami Activist Defense legal collective. We are
writing to provide you with some important information about your role
and duties as an NLG legal observer.
As you recall, you signed a confidentiality agreement when you signed up
as an LO. This confidentiality agreement is enclosed (or attached by
email) so you can review it. The NLG has developed this agreement to
ensure that the activists that we represent and assist can trust us and
know that we will keep their information confidential. It is also so
that information gathered by the LOs can be formally recognized as
confidential attorney work product information. When you are on the
streets making notes, photos, videos and tape recordings, you are
serving as the "eyes and ears" of the legal team -- NLG attorneys
who have volunteered their time to represent the demonstrators. The
information that you gather as an LO enables us to file civil rights
litigation to challenge the unconstitutional actions of law enforcement
and to protect people's right to protest. These are the important
reasons why we have our LOs sign the agreement and abide by the terms in
it.
Since the demonstration, it has come to our attention that LOs have made
public statements about their LO information including statements to
the press, articles for publications or on the internet, letters to the
editor and other forms of public distribution. As you can see from the
confidentiality agreement, these types of public dissemination of your
LO information are contrary to the terms of the agreement. While we
realize there is concern about wanting the story to get "out there"
about what really happened in Miami and the police repression and
brutality that people experienced, the LOs are not the vehicle for that.
The many organizations involved in the Miami mobilization, including
the NLG and Miami Activist Defense, have many ways of ensuring that
stories about what occurred are being put forward in the court of public
opinion. We work closely with other groups who are also doing so. The
attorneys on the legal team are also hard at work on putting together
civil rights litigation to protect the rights of protesters in Miami.
Public dissemination of your confidential information, while it may seem
helpful, is actually potentially harmful to our legal efforts and to
the movements that we seek to protect.
In signing the agreement, you agreed that you "shall not violate the
confidentiality interests of political demonstrators and organizations.
The presumption is that all information regarding demonstrators is
confidential unless I am explicitly told otherwise by an attorney
representing those demonstrators." At the same time, the agreement does
not prohibit LOs from "discussing the general nature of my work as a
Legal Observer, the general work of the NLG, or the general public
activities of the demonstrators. However, under no circumstances may I
reveal confidential information."
If you would like to speak publicly or to the media about any of the
"general" information referred to above, please call NLG Attorneys,
Andrea Costello (352) 271-**** (daytime/work), (352) 246-**** (cell) or
Marc Steier (917) 885-**** (cell), prior to any public discussions of
information that may be considered confidential. If you can't decide
whether it's confidential or not, please call us and we're glad to help
you figure that out. If you have already spoken to the press or publicly
about any LO information, and haven't talked with Andrea or Marc yet,
please let us know about it.
If you have not yet mailed in your legal observer materials, please do
so right away. You can mail them to: Miami Activist Defense, c/o
Southern Legal Counsel, 1229 N.W. 12th Avenue, Gainesville, Florida,
32601.
Again, we appreciate all your hard work and your commitment to the
movement. We look forward to working with you again in the future.
In solidarity,
Andrea Costello
Marc Steier |
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