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During the course of this saga I have repeatedly offered to allow a judge to be the arbiter over whether or not my video material has any evidentiary value.

Down the page just before the video.
http://joshwolf.net/blog/

I don't feel he is just some fighting some blind cause. It was more than a matter of simply turning over the tape. Below, words from his blog - http://www.joshwolf.net/

Contrary to popular opinion, this legal entanglement which has held me in Federal Prision for the past eight months, has never been about a videotape nor is the investigation about the alleged attempted arson of a San Francisco police vehicle as the government claims. While it is true that I was held in custody for refusing to surrender the tape and that the justification for making a federal case out of this was the police car, things are not always as they appear. The reality is that this investigation is far more pervasive and perverse than a superficial examination will reveal.

When I was subpoenaed in February of last year, I was not only ordered to provide my unedited footage, but to also submit to testimony and examination before the secretive grand jury. Although I feel that my unpublished material should be shielded from government demands, it was the testimony which I found to be the more egregious assault on my right and ethics as both a journalist and a citizen.

As there was nothing of a sensitive or confidential nature on my video outtakes, I had no reason to withhold their publication once I had exhausted all my legal appeals. When that point arrived I had already spent three months behind bars. I was advised by my legal team that publishing the video would not lead to my release; instead it would indicate to the court that my imprisonment was having a coercive effect even though it was not.

This hypothesis was verified when one of my attorney's inquired whether the Assistant US Attorney would accept the footage in lieu of my testimony, he was told that the video alone would not suffice and that the US Attorney would accept nothing less than my full compliance with the demands of the subpoena. Things change.

When the judge came to realize the support for my cause was growing and that I was unlikely to waver anytime soon, he ordered both parties to meet with a magistrate judge in the hopes we could reach a solution amenable to everyone. After two rather strenuous sessions of mediation, we at last came to an agreement that not only leaves my ethics intact but actively serves the role of a free press in our so-called free socieity.

In the words of Justice Douglas, "The press has a preferred position in our constitutional scheme, not to enable it to make money, not to set newsmen apart as a favored class, but to bring fulfillment to the public's right to know".

His blog should shed some light on the issues you and others have been asking.

Thought it might be useful to point out that the video footage Mr. Wolf did publish of the event can be found at:

http://www.joshwolf.net/blog/?p=76
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FAcrnudevo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhMfbeFgsic

It seems the court wanted the unedited footage...

Did you watch the video? "All Empires Must Fall / nogovernmentus" - rather than simply reporting on the issue, he seems to be pretty squarely in favor of the rioters. He claims to support the sentiment but not the actions- at this time. These were not protesters- they were criminals engaged in violent activity. It's the police officers who had the tough calls to make.

A lot of us artists don't agree with the copyright laws at all. In fact, a lot of us don't agree with the legal goon system, period. It disgusts me at how easily geeks want and search for ways to cave in against the massive police state instead of fight it with every core inch of their being.

Geeks for one thing are better educated that the proletariat, they have seen the images of depleted uranium babies on the net, of the lies by politians, of the miltary gun videos brought back from the war of people in gunships shooting unarmed civilians on the ground and laughing about it. The government is a criminal despot, the military is its weapon in global domination, and the so called fraudulent justice system is its way of furthering its control over conquered territories on the fine grain level of individuals and people. There is nothing just about the justice system. Get that through your mind from the get go.

Sure they go after criminals, and are quite happy to, it gives them a moral leg to stand on for their power game. They go after innocent people to, and enemies of the state. Mainly they want to justify reserving all the power for themselves and none for you. Theft is illegal for the private citizen, but legal for the governement (eminent domain). Slavery is illegal for the private citizen, but millions of prisoners work every day in prison as slaves without pay and under durress. Murder is illegal for the private citizen, yet the CIA School of Americas carry out assisination covertly and untold amounts of people are euphamistically neutralized as "enemy combatants". Child molestation is illegal, and yet the military shoots thousands of tons of "depleted uranium" nuclear waste (depleted being a euphamism) around indiscriminatly, causing the grossest and most vile of genetic mutations in children for thousands of years to come.

For one thing, who here can say they have ever been asked to vote on one single law, period. Ever? No not ever. Who here can say they have ever had much of a choice in their so called representative government. I'm sorry, but having an election every 4 years does not cut it, nor does reducing your choice of canidates down to two, the least possible number and still be able to call it a choice (yeah, right, I don' think so, and both of them are scumbag long time political animals from what I can tell).

I don't know about the rest of you but forget it, I'm not abiding by any laws that I had absolutely no say so whatsoever in creating.

Laws are a criminal way to control people via fear, internalize control over you, and project power.

If you don't want your media in the public domain, never release it off your harddrive. Period. Once you do, data wants to be free, to travel, to be replicated a immutably in carbon copies a thousand times... that is its strength.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=Double speak

http://www.anarchistblackcross.org/pdf/abciar.pdf

http://thirdworldtraveler.com/Book_Excerpts/Book_E xcerpts.html

http://www.joshwolf.net/blog/

http://blip.tv/file/get/Insurgent-1YearAgo133.mov

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfetZYt7BuU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YxFQhTUmek

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=depleted+ uranium+babies&btnG=Search

How many of you have read any of the court documents on his site? Clicking on the Grand Jury link (top of page) and scrolling to the bottom, you have a reverse chronological list of events in the case. One of the PDFs, "Reply to US Attorney's Opposition to Quash", has on page 2 a quote from David Picard of the FBI saying, "One of our major domestic terrorism programs is the ALF, EFF, and anarchist movement, and it's a nation program for the FBI." So let me get this straight: The EFF are terrorists? hah! I think that's only because they don't agree with the government...

I would agree with the poster above that we are clearly not in the state of the novel/film "1984". Although to suggest that there is no connection between the federal level of government and the local police I point you to a few articles. After looking at the JTTF, the recent news of Oakland police infiltrating non violent protest groups, and punishing independent journalists I think there is plenty of evidence that we have a police state and not just a few arrant officers. Read at your leisure. http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/02/11 /cointelpro/index.html http://www.joshwolf.net/grandjury/ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2 006/07/28/SURVEILLANCE.TMP Oh yes and I think I'll post this anonymously. I've got place I would like to fly to.