Georgia Court Streams Ridiculous 'Kraken' Lawsuit Hearing On YouTube; Then Tells People They Can't Repost Recordings

Free Speech

from the not-how-it-works dept

We have lots of concerns about court transparency, and how more transparent court systems would be nice. One of the more interesting consequences of the pandemic, in which many court hearings are now done virtually, is that courts have been much more open to allowing more realtime access to these court hearings. In one of the more high profile (and more ridiculous, if that’s possible) lawsuits challenging the election results — the so-called “Kraken” lawsuit in Georgia — there was a hearing earlier today. The court announced that the audio would stream on YouTube:

That says that the audio will be streamed on YouTube and provides you with a link. However, beneath it, it says the following:

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia is participating in an audio pilot program permitting a limited number of district courts to livestream audio of certain civil proceedings with the consent of the parties. Under the pilot program, audio of qualifying civil proceedings will be livestreamed on the court?s YouTube channel.

Audio recordings will not be available for playback on YouTube after proceedings have ended. Audio, in full or in part, from any proceeding may not be recorded, broadcast, posted or reproduced in any form.

And, uh, what? I kind of understand (if seriously disagree with) rules in courts saying that people in the courtroom are not allowed to record, but cannot fathom any possible way in which the court can say that audio that they’ve streamed out on the open web cannot be recorded or used in any form.

And already there seems to be some crackdown on those who did make use of the recordings. Reuters legal reporter Jan Wolfe was told to delete her tweets with the recording of Judge Timothy Bratten shutting down the lawsuit:

And, if you go to the original YouTube video where the court hearing was officially streamed, you now see this:

This seems absolutely ridiculous. I also cannot conceive of any possible basis for which the courts can force someone, especially a reporter, to not record or republish using the publicly available audio stream. And it’s not that difficult to find the audio stream reposted elsewhere.

As reporter Brad Heath notes, this seems both short-sighted and beyond the authority of the courts:

I’d go beyond short-sighted. It’s ridiculous. And demanding people take down such things seems to raise serious 1st Amendment issues.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, audio streaming, courts, free speech, georgia, prior restraint, recordings, sidney powell, transparency