Bank Robbery Suspect Wants NSA Phone Records to Prove His Innocence

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This is genuinely fascinating. A guy named Terrance Brown is on trial in Florida for allegedly masterminding the robbery of a Brinks armored truck. Prosecutors have used phone records to track the movements of one of Brown’s codefendants, but guess what? They don’t have phone data for Brown himself because his carrier apparently didn’t keep it.

You can see where this is going, right? Here’s the LA Times:

On Sunday, after federal officials acknowledged the NSA trove, Brown’s attorney, Marshall Dore Louis, filed a midtrial motion asking the NSA to turn over Brown’s phone records. “The records are material and favorable to Mr. Brown’s defense,” Louis wrote, adding that the request was “not intended as a general fishing expedition.”

Everyone quoted in the article expects the federal government to fight back like crazed weasels against this order, and I don’t doubt that they’re right. They’ll probably win, too. But it would certainly be an intriguing case for the Supreme Court to decide, wouldn’t it?

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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