On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 9:42 AM, Stephen LaPorte <slaporte(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
Hi Dimi,
In the US, amicus briefs can have legal value as well as media value.
Amici are not parties to the case, so it may not have the same weight as
the parties' briefs, but it's an opportunity to add another perspective.
Some advocacy organizations (like ACLU and EFF), as well as the US
government, regularly file amicus briefs on potentially relevant topics.
I should add that while there is a publicity angle (as there is to anything
in our modern world!) most lawyers are fairly reticent to create or join
amicus briefs merely for publicity - as a matter of professional ethics in
a formal legal document, the legal arguments still have to be solid and
persuasive.
Luis
On Wed, Feb 18, 2015 at 6:40 AM, Dimitar Parvanov
Dimitrov <
dimitar.parvanov.dimitrov(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Stephen,
Thanks for doing this! I do think we have an interest in this case and
questions about such letters have been raised even within our community.
The way I understand it, an amicus brief is like a highly official
letter of support but has no palpable legal value. Do such documents play
any role for the court or is this rather targeted at the media?
Thanks!
Dimi
2015-02-18 6:56 GMT+01:00 Stephen LaPorte <slaporte(a)wikimedia.org>rg>:
Hi all,
We have joined six other organizations[1] in an amicus brief[2] in
Twitter v. Holder.[3] Twitter initiated this action against the US
government to establish the right to publish more detailed info about the
number of national security letters it receives in its transparency report.
[1] Aautomattic, Cloudflare, CREDOMobile, Medium, Sonic, and Wickr.
[2]
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/foundation/5/54/Twitter_v_Holder_ami…
[3]
https://www.eff.org/cases/twitter-v-holder
--
Stephen LaPorte
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
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Luis Villa
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