To Philip Taubman, the Washington bureau chief of The New York Times, that briefing appeared to constitute "deliberate deception".
The briefing appeared to be an effort by counterterrorism officials to announce that the government was taking additional precautions before the election, without creating the impression that a broad new antiterror campaign is about to be undertaken in response to a heightened threat.
The design brief appears to have been: make it beautiful but let the screen do the talking.
And so it is a little awkward, in a case that hinges on appropriate disclosure, that the S.E.C., in a bevy of pretrial briefs, appears to be fighting vociferously to exclude troves of evidence from the trial that the defense says is material for the jury to make an informed decision about Mr. Tourre's innocence or guilt.
"And so it is a little awkward, in a case that hinges on appropriate disclosure, that the S.E.C., in a bevy of pretrial briefs, appears to be fighting vociferously to exclude troves of evidence from the trial that the defense says is material for the jury to make an informed decision about Mr. Tourre's innocence or guilt," Mr. Sorkin writes.
On another charge -- that Microsoft worked hard to block Netscape, maker of a competing browser, from the market -- the brief appeared to pick and choose from among the judge's findings to highlight those that appeared to support the company's case.
Several arguments in its brief appear tailored to Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who voted with the majority in Bowers v. Hardwick but is now assumed, on the basis of her later support for abortion rights and her votes in other due process cases, to be at least open to persuasion.
The brief appeared to reject much of the public's concern, noting that "the aesthetic values of water" are not subject to regulation.
The paper, captured by Press Association photographer Lewis Whyld, was recorded at a briefing and appears to order officers to make the arrest if Assange attempts to leave in a diplomatic bag or vehicle.
Hand-gate was thus brief and appears to have ended with slapped wrists.
