Blogging All the Way to Jail 465
Glyn writes "Time magazine is reporting on Josh Wolf the 'first blogger to be targeted by federal authorities for not cooperating with a grand jury.' Josh would have normally been protected from government coercion by California state shield laws but the prosecutors have argued its a federal matter, using quite shaky logic. Josh's blog is being updated by his mother, providing updates on what is happening. From the article: '"Not only does this logic seem silly," Wolf told TIME in June after receiving his final subpoena, "but if unchallenged it will have a deleterious effect on the state protections afforded to many journalists, both independent and those that are part of the established media." Judge William Alsup of Federal District Court rejected Wolf's arguments, and declared him in contempt of court. So he is now being held in a detention center in Dublin, Calif, where he could remain until next July.'"
Gateway (Score:2)
Re:Gateway (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Gateway (Score:5, Insightful)
We have truly become a police state. In the name of anti-terrorism everything Americans know and love about the USA is quickly dieing.
It's been quoted a thousand times but I think in this context it bears repeating:
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Ben Franklin
1775
Re:Gateway (Score:5, Interesting)
Slight correction, the feds are arguing the footable MIGHT show G8 protesters lighting the car. Josh says there is no such thing on his video. So the federal judge ruled its a federal case, because federal agents speculate that its possible it may show something which if streched as far as possible could be seen as a federal case even though those who have seen the video say it shows no such thing.
That seems a VERY low threshold for over-riding the states jurisdiction.
Re:Gateway (Score:5, Insightful)
FWIW this man is a journalist and by the most technical means ANYONE holding a camera recording footage to be reported to the general public is a journalist. Not just someone who gets a paycheck from a major news media company.
This is what is sad about our country these days, people assume that to do things, even simple things you must be registered and have some form of permission from some higher power. This is supposed to be a free country not free so long as its ok with mommy Administrative branch and daddy Judicial branch. Sadly thats what we are coming to.
Re:Gateway (Score:5, Insightful)
Although it doesn't seem to support what most people think... basically anybody can be required to testify in front of a grand jury. In the courtroom, the first amendment doesn't give special rights to the press. And in a position that you might want to think about before replying, I agree. There should be no special legal benefits given to a citizen over another citizen based on their profession. I find it amazing that most people here are happy with giving special legal shelter to a "special class" of citizen.
Equality under the law should apply to all citizens.
--
Evan
Re:Gateway (Score:4, Insightful)
Anybody can fire up a blog and become the press -- and many people on the in public carry a digital camera or video recorder at all times as part of their cell phone. I think that rather than dispensing special rights to a "special class" that is becoming less and less distinguishable from the public, we should re-examine why and under what circumstances any citizen is compelled to give testimony.
--
Evan
Re:Gateway (Score:3, Informative)
I didn't realize there was such a difference in legal definitions until someone pointed me to this page. [rcfp.org] More can be found here [rcfp.org]. In california though, he seems to be considered a jounalist for a number of reasons but the most compelling is that a news agency already purchased some of his work reguarding this.
If some one witnessed a crime first hand, I don'
Re:Gateway (Score:4, Insightful)
I would argue that the STATE authorities might have cause to get a warrant...but, not the feds. As far as I can tell, no crime was committed here to a federal agent, nor federal property. The larger question here is, the feds really stretching facts to try to make a state case a federal case. They are trying to usurp the states rights in this case. There should be no federal jurisdiction in this case...at least from what I can tell.
Re:Gateway (Score:5, Insightful)
Um, there is one little tiny point you missed. This is being processed as a Federal Case because the State has laws in place to protect him from this type of lawsuit. The police car is registered to the State - not the Federal - Government. The incident occured on a public road - not Federal Land. The type of crime - arson - is State - not Federal. The Federal Government has no jurisdiction. What they are using is an extremely far fetched claim of partial ownership of the police car, based on the fact that DHS gave the City govt a Block Grant.
The problem is that Block Grants are just that Grants - they don't impart any degree of ownership. If the US Govt isn't listed on the car's title as a joint owner, and the value of the part ownership isn't listed in the DHS accounting books, they don't own it & don't have standing for jurisdiction in this case. The issue isn't that somebody is trying to get him to fork over his tapes, it's that the people who are doing it don't have the legal standing in a sane world to do it. California put into place a law specifically to avoid intimidating the press like this, by making it a Federal case under extremely dubious context, the Federal Government is sidestepping that law and vastly overstepping it's jurusdiction.
The Revolution will be Televised (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Gateway (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember long ago that the British government wanted to stifle our pamphleteering, which was aimed at destroying British loyalty. Our forefathers ensured that we would always have this right when they created the first amendment.
Re:Gateway (Score:5, Interesting)
Did you read the summary of the argument for Federal jurisdiction? It is apparently based on the fact that the SFPD receives Federal anti-terrorism funding. This is absurd. Though I find the act of burning police cars repugnant and I loathe most of these nonsensical protestors more than anything, I can't abide the abuse of jurisdiction just to browbeat a guy into giving the Feds a video that somebody says might contain footage of a crime being committed.
I don't know what the qualifications for being a "journalist" are, but if the state has laws that shield journalists, why not let the state court decide whether the guy is a journalist rather than relying on a complete legal fiction and an "ends-justify-the-means" attitude towards jurisdiction?
Re:Gateway (Score:3, Insightful)
No, but police should not be allowed to sieze anything they want in an investigation, especially from someone who is not a suspect in said suspected crime. Siezing my car because it may have driven past the flaming police car is (or should be) illegal.
Re:Gateway (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems that the police have a warrent. I get the feeling that the police are not revealing everything they know (which is normal proceedure for an ongoing investigation). The judge must have been told something else to make him issue a warrent.
Here is something that bothers me: if he did not record anything illegal, which is his c
Re:Gateway (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps because the shield law is about Protecting Unpublished Information and Confidential Sources [thefirstamendment.org] and specificly "all notes, outlines, photographs, tapes or other data of whatever sort" for the purpose of protecting "a journalist from being adjudged in contempt by a judicial, legislative, or administrative body, or any other body having the power to issue subpoenas, for the failure to comply with a subpoena."
So if he is a journalist, then he should be covered. I don't see how he could possibly not be a journalist. So he should be covered. It certainly feels as though the Feds are more or less saying, "You have it, we want it, we are taking it."
Re:Mod parent up even though he is wrong :-D (Score:3, Interesting)
At anyrate, the problem becomes that the government could compel you to had over ANY tape on which they THINK a crime might have been recorded. As a journalist, I think you can see why that could be a problem. Its not only protection of sources, its protection of what the journalist investigated. Think of a case where the government finds you have a tape you're doing to use in
Re:Gateway (Score:5, Funny)
Well (Score:4, Interesting)
This is like saying that since I am an American citizen, that there is some portion of the collective
"Amreican Dream/Resources" that is owned by ME, and I have the say , to be able to stop the government
from drilling in Alaska or anywhere, and selling MY portion of the public reosurces to anyone. Hmmmm.
Re:Well (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Well (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well (Score:2)
Re:Well (Score:2)
Typical method of Fed intimidation (Score:4, Interesting)
I totally disagree with the tactics being used to force the video to be made available. At the same time I think its wrong to cover up a crime because of one's beliefs. If you videotape a crime then you are obligated to report it. There can be none of this "its okay for us but not them mentality" because we are all us and them at the same time.
He claims there is no crime on the tape, fine, then show it and be done with it. Get it to a public outlet. If there is a crime then he just publicity hounding and forcing an issue that should never had occured.
Hopefully the Feds will lose this attempt to secure the tape but at the same time hopefully he will turn it over to someone if it shows a crime being committed. Willful destruction of property should not be tolerated in any state, free or not. If you cannot protest without destroying someone else's property you need to be locked up as your not a productive part of society let alone doing your cause any good.
Re:Typical method of Fed intimidation (Score:5, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO [wikipedia.org]
Some of us remember.
KFG
Re:Typical method of Fed intimidation (Score:5, Insightful)
The number of people replying "Just show the tape, if it has no crimes" in this thread really bothers me. It bothers me because of the shortsightedness/lack of history awareness they show.
Operations such as cointelpro are almost certainly continuing to operate. People like Josh Wolf are the targets. The people most likely to be on his tapes are his friends, family & associates.
If he hands over these tapes, he can expect everyone on them to be harassed. Frankly, thank the gods for people like him - they stand between us & a far more opressive world.
Re:Typical method of Fed intimidation (Score:3, Insightful)
Whoops, you made a typo - let me correct it for you:
So in choosing to protect his friends from being harassed for peaceful participation in a protest, thus helping to protect the rest of us from being victims of similar harrassment make for a better civilization?
What an enlightened attitude.
Why, it is an enlighted attit
Re:Typical method of Fed intimidation (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Typical method of Fed intimidation (Score:5, Insightful)
That cuts both ways, but as we've seen, NYPD among others has a habit of providing EDITED TAPES when supoeaed.
IF you want to hold The People to a standard, FIRST hold The Man to it.
Re:Typical method of Fed intimidation (Score:5, Informative)
Here [nytimes.com] is a graphic that you don't need to pay for.
Googling for NYPD RNC edited tapes turns up a bunch of hits.
I was actually involved in this story - I volunteered to watch videos of the RNC protests to write logs for them for I-Witness Video. I logged the differences between the tapes, although it was someone else who first noticed the difference - Eileen Clancy, who's mentioned in the article. Also edited out, but not mentioned in the NYT article, is the NYPD beating the shit out of a black protestor.
Nor is this an isolated incident - the NYPD routinely denies that tapes exist. In an unrelated case, a witness's tape caught several plainclothes cops on camera with videotapes in one of these cases, and the NYPD said, "How do you know those are cops, that could be anyone." Eileen had to be called to the stand to testify that those people had been identified as cops in other videos before the NYPD (and DA's office) admitted that tapes existed and released them to the defense.
Or how about the Miami PD denying they attacked a first aid station during protests there in 2003, despite reports that the PD videotaped it?
I'd like to see the Feds take action in THOSE cases (the DOJ was supposed to look into the NYPD abuses, but Google turns up nothing after the initial announcement). Josh Wolf is a brave man, and his reasons for not providing the tape certainly, in the context of our country's law enforcement tactics, certainly outweigh the potential benefit of releasing the tape.
Re:Typical method of Fed intimidation (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are a journalist covering a riot, or any large social diturbance, you are going to see crimes. If you can be compelled to show criminals on the tape, then pretty soon no journalist will cover such things for fear of retribution from the rioters, who know that the guy taping them will have to hand his tape over to the feds. Not much longer, and there won't be any tapes of such things. If you took it to an extreme, we'd have a Tiananmen Square sort of deal, only for slightly different reasons.
Re:Typical method of Fed intimidation (Score:2)
Yeah, that worked SO well for Judith Miller's career. It seems the likelihood of some journalism-martyrdom-phoenix incentive scenario for getting incarcerated for not letting authority get what it wants as being pretty thin here.
Re:Typical method of Fed intimidation (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Typical method of Fed intimidation (Score:3, Informative)
No, actually the stated ideal is that for democracy to work, we need to have an informed electorate. That means that journalism serves a purpose that is valuable and worth protecting. This is exactly why CA has a Journalistic Shield Law in place. What does trump the shield law is if a *defendent* requires the information, never (ever) a pr
Re:Typical method of Fed intimidation (Score:3, Insightful)
And when the rights of We, the People peaceably to assemble are abridged [wikipedia.org], then what do we do? Roll over and take it? Is that what the Founding Fathers would have done? Not just no, but Hell, no!
When government - Executive, Legislative and Judicial - ignore the Constitution, then they lose the authority to govern. It's that simple.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
If the police car in question is federal property because some federal funds went towards its purchase, then it logically follows that the folks who allegedly set it on fire were burning their own property, because, as taxpayers, they own the federal government.
As the latter part of that argument doesn't hold water, neither should the former.
Re:Well (Score:4, Insightful)
that the feds partially own everything bought by any city or state agency who in any way receive any form of money from any federal agency, and that all of those things are under federal jurisdiction.
As your post so nicely points out, that is patently absurd.
Hopefully someone can stop this line of reasoning and have it declared illegal very quickly. Or else, the feds will be able to claim jurisdiction for practically anything, at any time, merely because they wish to, and the agency in question received some federal moneys at some point. So much for the Constitution.
Watching America become a friggin' police state is very troubling, and I'm not even American.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
They weren't burning their own property. They were burning our property. We have rules about who gets to burn police cars, and where, and when, and how. Personally, I fucking hate it when someone decides that the rules apply to everybody except them. They want to change our rules, let them discuss it with the rest of us, so that we can all agree on the changes. If they're not going to do that, then as far as I'm concerned, they've separated themselves from the rest of us, and no longer have any claim on our joint assets and privileges. The sooner our executive agents throw the book at these asshats, the better.
Re:Well (Score:2)
I don't know (Score:3, Insightful)
However, I see the flip side where a crime was committed (the burning of the police car) and the police have a right and duty to investigate the crime. At least from the Time write-up it wasn't like the police crashed his colo, forcible removed his servers, etc. It was a grand jury that subpoenaed him for the evidence. That's their job. Josh had the right to ignore the subpoena to which the Judge charged him with contempt.
I won't argue that saying it's a federal issue because SFPD gets federal funding is a little shady. Every government organization gets federal funding in some way so every government lawsuit should be transferred to federal court. The whole jurisdiction issue aside, it seems to me that things are working as they are suppose to. If you don't like how the laws are written, that's fine, then lobby to get them changed. But don't bitch and moan when the letter of the law is followed.
Re:I don't know (Score:4, Insightful)
Jurisdiction is the issue.
KFG
Re:I don't know (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry - I seem to be missing the millions of dollars necessary to hire someone to bribe a politician and get a bad law changed. Regular people simply don't have this option available.
Someone else said that we have this thing called 'voting'. I am honestly wondering when the last time was that voting actually mattered in the US. Every election we get the same rhetoric, shoveled in, then shoveled out. If the office changes residents, the new guy continues the job exactly like the old guy because he/she/it is afraid to change the status quo or to upset their party line. Voting doesn't change shit, it only changes the shovel.
Re:I don't know (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't know (Score:5, Insightful)
Several incumbent Congress folks were voted out of office yesterday. The three that I know of are Joe Lieberman (over 18 years in the Senate), Cynthia McKinney and Joe Schwarz (1-term Republican from Michigan).
It also appears that Rick Santorum, Senator from my state, will be unseated this fall unless the new electronic voting machines can be surrepticiously rigged after testing (which seems to be very thorough thanks to Carnegie Mellon University professor Michael Shamos). See this article [post-gazette.com] which gives a brief background of him.
The key is that those fat, lazy, apathetic people who, like you apparently, don't feel their vote count, get up and vote out the incumbents. Once the incumbents are removed, if things don't improve, vote out the ones you just put in. Keep doing that until the message sinks in.
Of course being that we only have a ~30% voter turnout this will never happen and people will continue to whine that their vote doesn't matter. Which it won't if you don't get off your fat, lazy ass and cast a vote.
Re:I don't know (Score:3, Informative)
Fortunately for Joe, the election in November is for "United States Senator from Connecticut" instead of "United States Senator from the Democratic Party of Connecticut."
Re:I don't know (Score:3, Interesting)
No. These were primaries. They don't get "voted out" until the November elections. Lieberman for example will now run as an independant, so don't cout him out yet. Not sure what his chances are, but he WAS one of the few moderates out there that has bi-partisan support.
Most primaries actually have very low voter turnout, so it's fairly easy for this kind of thing to happen.
Re:I don't know (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because I feel my vote is being ignored doesn't mean I don't vote. I do vote. Every election. And when I vote this fall, I will doing my damnedest to help unseat Santorum - just like you (you didn't say how you'd be voting, but we can all hope).
We live in a society where we are told from early childhood that "Every Vote Counts", yet we have a presidential elec
Re:I don't know (Score:5, Informative)
You can get $600,000 in sweetheart deals just by donating $40,000 to a House campaign. [irregulartimes.com] Oh, and note that that's 25 people giving money, not 1 person.
Sure, two grand a person is a lot for representation, but look at the ROI. And it would only take 4,000 people donating $10 each to a cause to get this kind of treatment. Or 400 people giving $100 each.
Re:I don't know (Score:2)
If you don't like how the laws are written, that's fine, then lobby to get them changed. But don't bitch and moan when the letter of the law is followed.
The problem is
Re:I don't know (Score:2)
I also look at it from the perspective that a journalist has a responsiblity
Re:I don't know (Score:5, Informative)
Two sets of laws are in conflict here, question is which do you follow. Federal law is trying to get him to do something (turn over video) that state law explicitly says he does not have to do.
The ("a little shady") jurisdiction question is everything, you can't just say "jurisdiction issue aside..." because it is the issue.
Re:I don't know (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't know (Score:2)
The reason journalists get that privelege is to maintain a free press.
But we live in an era in which anybody can publish. I don't think there is a sturdy basis for assigning "extra" rights to some people but not others. If this guy gets to ignore subpoenas, then I get to ignore subpoenas.
Bottom line: Who is more likely to abuse a law? (Score:2)
If you allow journalists to withhold information, and everyone may become a journalist, then everyone could technically find a way to avoid testifying in court.
So what it comes down to is simply, who is more likely to abuse a system? The state or its people. And I for one do rather trust the people than the state.
It's sad, but these days, it's the lesser evil. It's sad that you
Compensation (Score:3, Insightful)
Fund this now! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fund this now! (Score:3, Interesting)
Give $10 bucks instead each month to the EFF or ACLU or whatever of your choice. Do it at the cost of watching 1 less crappy movie per month, and on the plus side it will give the MPAA just a little less funding to attack our liberties at the same time.
I know it's asking for more, but for people who actually go through the effort of giving and if their time is worth anything, the difference between a dollar and $10 should be negligibl
Unfortunately the ACLU is part of the problem (Score:4, Interesting)
Give $10 bucks instead each month to the EFF or ACLU or whatever
One of the reasons the government has successfully eliminated many rights which we thought were guaranteed by the Constitution, is that there has been no focus of opposition.
The ACLU should have focussed our attention on the violations as they happened. But the ACLU is very partisan. For example, it opposed [centerdigitalgov.com] the recall of Governor Gray Davis, a Democrat, in California, on completely spurious grounds. It should keep out of party politics. People who care deeply about the Bill of Rights can be found among Republicans as well as among Democrats, and we need all such people. The ACLU drove them away, by this and many other campaigns.
By all means support the EFF, by the way, though I'm not sure it's as relevant to this particular case as a properly-functioning ACLU would have been.
Re:Unfortunately the ACLU is part of the problem (Score:4, Informative)
In slightly more depth; the ACLU did not "oppose" the recall election, they were instead attempting to ensure that each person who bothered to cast a vote had their vote counted. At that time it had been mandated that new voting machines be in place before the next general election, but 12 counties had not yet complied with the order (since they still had a significant amount of time before the next "regularly scheduled" election was to take place). The ACLU was pointing out that since the recall election would take place before the 12 counties wouold be able to get their act together, resulting in another election with wide-rannging impacts potenitally being decided by voting machines officially considered unreliable, the election should be delayed until those counties were able to comply.
Like usual, the right then jumped all over them (as you do) for getting involved in party politics, when in fact they were doing what they have done incredibly consistently in the past - attempting to protect the civil liberties that we enjoy, regardless of what narrow group it will harm or help in the short term. The ACLU is functioning perfectly well; the problem is that people like you consistently mis-interpret their fights to protect our basic rights and liberties in terms of who they are helping or hurting short-term; the same people who say how evil the ACLU is when they fight, for example, for the freedom of speech of groups that are widely despised.
Re:Fund this now! (Score:3, Insightful)
If he says there's no criminal evidence on the tape, that's that. If there was evidence, he would have revealed it by now; otherwise, he would be complicit in the alleged act of destruction, should it ever be revealed that he had evidence.
That is quite possibly this most naive thing I have ever read on slashdot. Are you seriously arguing, mere days after a major scandal involving fabricated news photos, that we can absolutely, unquestioningly believe that every "journalist" is telling the truth?
So what happens... (Score:2)
Re:So what happens... (Score:2, Interesting)
Close to the last straw (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who still believes that we retain those rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights is off his rocker. Something tells me the US is in need of a (peaceful) revolution in order to shake out the evils that are festering.
Without a free press, really, what are we basing this 'democracy' on?
Re:Close to the last straw (Score:5, Insightful)
I always find the notion that the US needs a new "revolution" laughable. The US has a functional system already in place to allow revolution. Believe me, getting a 50% or even 2/3 majority is a hell of a lot easier then trying armed rebellion or even a drawn out peaceful demonstration. The issue in the United States is not the oppressed masses. The issue in the United States is the indifferent masses.
If you can't get the average American off their lazy ass to spend a single hour of their time to vote for a candidate, you can pretty much rest assured that you won't get them off their lazy asses for any sort of "revolution", peaceful or otherwise.
Hell, you don't even need to get 2/3 or 50% of the population to vote in your favor. You need to get 2/3 of the VOTING population to vote for you. If you optimistically assume that 50% of Americans who can vote do vote, that means that you need only 25% of the population that can vote to take control of the government. With a paltry 33% of the people who can vote voting in your favor, you can completely rewrite the government and constitution.
Americans don't need a "revolution". They need to get off their lazy asses and vote if they don't like what they see.
Re:Close to the last straw (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Close to the last straw (Score:3, Interesting)
If you can't get people to vote, how can you possibly get them to rebel?
If you don't get that, consider this: Let's say you started a massive campaign aimed at all those disenfranchised voters that you somehow think will revolt given the opportunity. Your message is simple: "vote my party in, and we'll change the way the system works". Now, all you need is > 50% of the voting public in each district to respond. What do you think
Re:Close to the last straw (Score:3, Informative)
Grassroots democracy and mass public relations campaigns basically break down somewhere between 10e6 and 10e8. Why? Taking it in physics terms, the inertia of the sheeple outweighs even a huge and aware minority.
Major corporations can laugh with derision at any sort of boycott. Does Disney cower when Dobbson's flock yell about Gay Day at the parks? Can five hundred small towns bring Wal*Mart to the mat when Wal*Mart dangles a carrot of a few hundred underpaid, underinsured jobs each?
You're never go
Re:Close to the last straw (Score:2)
Re:Close to the last straw (Score:2)
No, seriously, if I had the mod points I'd give them all to you. Nothing pisses me off more than self-righteous people trying to make a statement and instead making my day to day life a pain in the ass. Why in the world would I support your cause if you make my trip to work (or heaven help you, my trip home) more difficult?
Thinking it Through: The Logic of Shield Laws (Score:5, Interesting)
What if the role was reversed? What if some pro-police blogger had a video up of protesters getting the shit kicked out of them by police? What if the Rodney King beating had been posted online with the identities of the police officers edited out on a blog? Would we still then be so adamant that a media shield is the best thing?
What if this guy had received a tape of a 12 year old girl getting raped, edited out the rapist, and then posted it onto his blog. Would people still be so adamant that he deserves some sort of media shield?
I think that people are applying the "common sense" test instead of really thinking through the implications of media shield laws, especially in a world where everyone can be the media. It is "common sense" that he would have to give up a video of a little girl getting raped, but not "common sense" that he has to give up a video of a police car being destroyed.
I like the idea of media shield laws to some extent. The press absolutely is an invaluable tool in the regulation of democracy. That said, there needs to be a coherent and consistent approach to such shield laws.
For those who believe that this man is being jailed unfairly, what do you propose the law be? Should the media never be forced to give up evidence of a crime, even in extreme cases like rape and murder? Should some crimes be protected by media shield laws and others not protected?
Re:Thinking it Through: The Logic of Shield Laws (Score:2, Interesting)
Why does the victim have to be 12, and why a girl? You're setting up a straw man.
If Wolf was a big media corporation, the feds would never have bothered to file a subpoena. He's going to jail because they don't want citizen journalism, it's that simple. The tape is just an excuse.
Re:Thinking it Through: The Logic of Shield Laws (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, really now? [msn.com]
Re:Thinking it Through: The Logic of Shield Laws (Score:3, Interesting)
Why 12 years old and why a girl? Because it is an extreme example of the law that designed specifically provoke people into thinking through the whole implication of shield laws. 12 year old girls getting raped tends to be produce deep disgusted and a complete lack of sympathy in most people, while burning a cop car really doesn't result in all that many tears for most. The point isn't to change anyone's mind, but to make pe
Your whole premise is wrong (Score:2)
Re:Your whole premise is wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Thinking it Through: The Logic of Shield Laws (Score:5, Insightful)
That is why we have judges in a court of law, because there are a number of ways of interpreting the law as well as criminal actions.
You comparison of a police car on fire, to the rape of a 12 year old girl are so different, that it disgusting of you to even try to compare them. It cheapens the whole debate. Might as well bring in Nazis concentration camps as well.
Re:Thinking it Through: The Logic of Shield Laws (Score:2)
The parent poster did not employ any analogies. The parent poster gave several different cases of applying a journalist shield law, and correctly said that we can't just have a policy of picking the cases we like, and excluding the cases we don't like. Having judges apply their own arbitrary preferences does not help at all. That would just mean handing arbitrary power to a state official.
What we need is a rule for distinguishing between
Re:Thinking it Through: The Logic of Shield Laws (Score:3, Interesting)
What if?
But it's not. The what ifs always change the situation.
I need not bring up watergate, where deepthroat was breaking laws as well (on his part) and the reporters sucessfully protected his identity - a man that I'm sure the government would have loved to prosecute for leaking state secrets or some such.
Re:Thinking it Through: The Logic of Shield Laws (Score:2)
Regardless of one thinks the law _should_ be, if he is imprisoned against current law it is unfair.
re: Common sense (Score:2)
I believe that journalists deserve protection, not for who they are, but for what they do. What must be protected are the freedoms of free press and free speech, not some elevated Fourth Estate, or some bohemian class of Observers. Rules for protecting press and speech need to be applied in a co
Re:Thinking it Through: The Logic of Shield Laws (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh, what garbage. (Score:2)
Nice. I missed the part where Washington employeed suicide bombers, or targeted the citizens of Philadelphia to death for being insufficiently pro-rebellion, or where Ben Franklin used sabotage to attack London, or where Patrick Henry cut the balls off captured British soldiers. But other than that, yeah, the American rebels were complete terrorists.
Re:Thinking it Through: The Logic of Shield Laws (Score:2)
Either freedom of speech is or isn't. There is no "what if". Would you require your priest to talk to the police about confessions? What if a murderer talked about it in confession, would you require the priest to talk? If so, what about the freedom of confession?
If you DO require journalists and priests to hand over whatever they learn about, the result will be, in the short term, a few more crimes reported and solved. In the long run, it leads to fewer crimes even being uncovered. Wh
Re:Thinking it Through: The Logic of Shield Laws (Score:2, Insightful)
They still shouldn't have to give up the tapes if they don't want to. If someone records a video and will be required to release it (and they don't want to), then they either won't record the video, or edit it and put out the edited version anonymously, or destroy it when they're do
Re:Thinking it Through: The Logic of Shield Laws (Score:3, Insightful)
Meanwhile in Chinese-occupied Tibet... (Score:4, Interesting)
Details of such a heinous thought crime can be found here [phayul.com].
In the past the US of A took a much stronger stand against such obscene human rights violations by the Chinese regime and other dictatorships, but it is very clear that the current regime in Washington has neither the intention nor moral standing to help oppressed and occupied peoples. You see, the dictators in Beijing are among Bush's "staunchest allies" in this bizarre "global war of terror" where the occupied and the oppressed are considered to be the "terrorists"!
Dubya's inaugural address (2005) [whitehouse.gov] now reads like a sad mockery of the Freedoms the USA used to claim to be representing:
The six million Tibetans living in the world largest concentration camp they once knew as their homeland meanwhile haven't even got a clue that the "world's most powerful man and the leader of the Free World" ever uttered those words. Even possessing a copy of the UN's Human Rights Declaration is enough to get a Tibetan slammed into the Chinese prison camps...
Let me go out on a limb here (Score:2, Interesting)
No, no, no and no. In fact, it's exactly the opposite. The courts have ask him to produce video footage of a crime that he witnessed and he has refused. That's exactly the same as lying in court and it carries a penalty of jail time. This has absolutely nothing to do with the First Amendment so it's no
No, no, no (Score:5, Informative)
NO. The courts are trying to get him to produce video of a crime that he supposedly witnessed. In fact, even when the video is turned in it might have no burning cars at all... but what it might have are the faces and identities of a bunch of protestors for the police to happily round up and put thumbscrews to. How often nowadays is being within the vicinity of lawbreakers seen as being involved with them, pretty damn often.
On for the record, the state laws do allow him to with-hold the tape, which is why the government has gone to dubious stretches of logic to make it a federal issue.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
And now we see what "state's rights" means when (Score:3, Insightful)
It means you pay a lot of lip service to state's rights.
Just torture him, he'll give up the tape... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:why not hand the tape over (Score:3, Informative)
If you'd bothered reading the article before commenting, you'd know that he thinks the feds want video footage to identify activists not involved in the arson of the car.
Re:why not hand the tape over (Score:2)
If a police car was set on fire and he has footage of said police car then he is witholding evidence of a crime. This has nothing to do with the right to publish stories on a blog.
Has there ever been a case where a journalist has withheld evidence of a crime and been protected for it?
I could understand if it was a whistleblower issue but it isn't.
Re:why not hand the tape over (Score:2, Insightful)
yes, the operative words being 'he thinks'. But if he thinks that the feds haven't already got footage of every 'activist' at that G8 protest, he's a fool. What they seem to not have decent footage of is those activists setting fire to a car.
I still don't see his problem, unless he thinks arson is a legitimate political tool.
Re:why not hand the tape over (Score:2)
Re:why not hand the tape over (Score:4, Insightful)
James Madison was one of those people - I'm sure if you'd been around back when the father of the consitution was (anonymously) writing the federalist papers, you would have said to him "Can you only be willing to stand up for your beliefs when there's no chance of repercussions?"
But that's all a little beside the point - none of the people in the videos are being given a choice, its the blogger who's deciding....
Re:why not hand the tape over (Score:3, Interesting)
That is EXACTLY the point, and I do live in the US. It is a State's rights issue that has been fought since the establishment of the union. The federal government gets its rights from the States. Changes to the Constitution, for example, must be ratified by the states before they become valid.
The ones who should be upset by tenuous funding connections to
Re:why not hand the tape over (Score:2)
Re:why not hand the tape over (Score:2, Insightful)
He's protecting activists' anonymity. Even if he were only protecting some punks who lit a car on fire (and I don't think he is), then he still shouldn't have to hand over his videos, or the next time he tries to go record video in a chaotic situation, those punks will light him on fire. No journalist, no matter how big or small, should be forced to be an agent of the police
Re:You are part of the solution (Score:3, Interesting)
Anyone who witnesses a crime and does nothing is not a citizen, and is not entitled to treatment as a citizen.
Have you ever seen anyone speeding and not called it in? If you saw a 90 year old man in horrible pain attempt to stop the pain through suicide would you physically force him to continue to suffer?
Who is to say what is a crime even, let alone what is "evil" or unethical? Is the crime of burning a police car any less ethical than the crime of intentionally keeping an entire nation on the brink or