Comparing the Broadband Three Trials to The Trial by Franz Kafka

I am reading the book Blogging Enron: TheEnron Broadband Story by Ellison Cara, 2014, and while reading about the tribulations and 'trials' of Joseph Hirko, F. Scott Yeager, and Rex Shelby and the way that the government went after them I was reminded of the book by Franz Kafka, The Trial. There are a lot of similarities in these books, not to say they are the same but they are similar. The major difference is that one book is a work of fiction written in 1914-15 and the other is a true account of the government prosecution of the “The Broadband Three”. 100 years difference between the two accounts and yet it looks as if human nature has not changed.

From The Trial by Franz Kafka:

“Someone must have slandered Josef K., for one morning, without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.” 

“They're talking about things of which they don't have the slightest understanding, anyway. It's only because of their stupidity that they're able to be so sure of themselves.”

“...it is not necessary to accept everything as true, one must only accept it as necessary. 'A melancholy conclusion,' said K. 'It turns lying into a universal principle.’”

“The two of them (police officers) felt K.’s nightshirt, and said he would now have to wear one that was of much lower quality, but that they would keep the nightshirt along with his other underclothes and return them to him if his case turned out well. ‘It’s better for you if you give us the things than if you leave them in the storeroom,’ they said. ‘Things have a tendency to go missing in the storeroom, and after a certain amount of time they sell things off, whether the case involved has come to an end or not. And cases like this can last a long time, especially the ones that have been coming up lately.’” 

“K. was living in a free country, after all, everywhere was at peace, all laws were decent and were upheld, who was it who dared accost him in his own home? He was always inclined to take life as lightly as he could, to cross bridges when he came to them, pay no heed for the future, even when everything seemed under threat.”

From 'Blogging Enron':

“...Federal Judge Melinda Harmon once referred to as ‘the black hole’ of the Enron litigations.”

“...(Enron Task Force)...which, according to prosecutor John Kroger, had been told to ‘get scalps quickly’ at Enron.”

“The government used plea deals to entice Enron executives to turn on one another...[The] Government used them ruthlessly in the Enron cases.”

The indictments against “The Broadband Three” were that press releases contained false information and inaccurate information used to raise the price of Enron stock so they could sell stock and make a profit. The problem with this is that: 1) the defendants did not create the press announcements, 2) the content of the announcements were totally in sync with the best technical information available, 3) Enron stock prices did not rise in the period under investigation, and 4) the “Broadband Three” did not own any Enron Corp stock during that time period.

“Before bringing its indictment against The Broadband Three, the Feds allowed the physical network, including the computers containing all of EBS’ software code, to be dismantled and auctioned off piecemeal. Therefore, the defendants and the jurors were denied the only tangible evidence that would have proved or disproved the government’s case convincingly.”...“The government claimed that the software didn’t exist, and that defendants Rex Shelby, Joe Hirko, and Scott Yeager had lied about the capabilities to inflate the stock price.”

Your government at work...and if you have not you should read 'The Trial'...It is free on the internet..... 

Jerry