Today I came a cross an interesting new website called Ungagged.net (via this post on Houston's Clear Thinkers). The site has one primary purpose: to "raise awareness about the problem of prosecutorial abuse in the United States of America," which it seeks to achieve via a webumentary about the Enron case.

Ungagged.net presents dozens of videos in which people who "experienced or observed prosecutorial abuses committed by the Enron Task Force" tell their stories, and it contends that there is another side of the Enron story that remains untold. Specifically, the videos feature people who describe their interaction with the Enron Task Force, including former Enron employees, defendants and attorneys. Subject matter experts in the disciplines of economics, political science, finance, and civil liberties also share their experiences. Ungagged.net pulls no punches, and argues that the information in the videos confirms that the Task Force:

• Kept potential witnesses (the people who were at Enron and had first-hand knowledge about events) from talking to the defendant’s lawyers

• threatened to indict any witnesses who agreed to work with the defense lawyers – and, they kept a Grand Jury seated until after the Lay/Skilling trial, to back up that threat

• indicted people who refused to lie on the stand in order to bear false witness against the Enron Task Force’s ultimate targets

• indicted people on vague charges (in one case, more than 100 charges) and then grouped these charges into an overriding “conspiracy” charge. Why? Because in a conspiracy case, hearsay evidence is admissible.

• purposefully avoided gathering evidence that could be favorable to the defendants (called “exculpatory evidence”)

• hid and permitted the destruction of evidence that was favorable to defendants

• failed to turn over exculpatory evidence to the defendants

• manipulated the notes they took during interviews with witnesses, excluding all exculpatory material

• withheld exculpatory evidence until it was too late to be useful to the defendants

• failed to reveal/admit that their witnesses lied on the stand

• purposefully manipulated the media, in order to poison the jury pool

• manufactured false evidence; and

• ensured that their “cooperating witnesses” received comparatively-low sentences

In short, Ungagged.net argues, the "Enron Task Force won their convictions unfairly, by abusing their power."

There are many, many provocative videos on the site to check out. Here is one that features an Enron employee named Joannie discussing the day her friend, Mark Koenig, pleaded guilty (click below and go to clip #3):

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