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Apple Wins Against Bloggers
linuxwrangler writes "Saying that no one has the right to publish information that could have been provided only by someone breaking the law, judge James Kleinberg ruled that online reporters for Apple Insider and PowerPage must reveal their sources. No word yet on an appeal."
From Slashdot:
No word yet on an appeal.
From the article:
He said the trio would appeal the judge's ruling.
Oi, this is getting bad. I mean, do the submitter read the articles they submit?
-Valiss
This blogger, whom I have become completely addicted to, wrote the best article I've read on the subject. It deals with only one of the several lawsuits filed, but the points he makes are real thought-provokers.
Sorry for being such a shameless pimp, but I really think people who are interested in this Apple story would be interested in this article.
(I got the link from MacSlash last weekend.)
This helps to ensure that the legal system cannot simply apply the letter of the law and steamroll over everyone. It also helps to prevent people from using laws to shield illegal activity.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Does this mean that Jeff Gannon aka James Guckert was just as much of a "journalist" as anyone else in the White House Press room? Since there is a BLOGGER in the White House now, and apparently anyone with a web site is a journalist, doesn't this apply there as well?
(Yes, I'm being a little sarcastic there.)
Or shall we stay on topic here?
And to directly answer your question, yes, Novak should reveal his source if there is ever any court action that compels him to do so. (Disclaimer: I am not familiar with shield laws on this topic in Novak's jurisdiction or Washington DC.)
And it's not treason. Treason in the US is very specifically defined as only "levying war against the United States or 'in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort,' and requires the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act or a confession in open court for conviction."
There is an exemption in the law for information that is in the public interest; as such, the whole conviction/pardon thing would be ignoring the law, not following it.
In other words, the papers did NOT break the law, since they fell under what is commonly called a "whistleblower" exemption.
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
From the Judge's opinion, posted on the EFF's site:
In short, Apple had strong enough evidence that this information wasn't just accidently leaked to convince the court that trade secret laws had been violated and for the subpeonas to go forward.
I honestly can't see why these two reporters are protecting their sources in the Valerie Plame case. Supposedly, someone (or some people) wanted to settle a score with the operative's husband and decided that the best way was to ruin this lady's career. This was a criminal act under Section 421 of Title 50 of the United States Code (better known as the Intelligence Identities Protection Act) which is designed to protect the agent, the agent's contacts in the USA and in foreign countries, and prevent impairment of the country's national security efforts.
In short, these reporters were used to do someone's dirty work. They must have known this, but they still protect the person or persons who used them, possibly even to the extent of going to jail.
Here's an example of the difficulty in allowing the reporters to keep secrets. Suppose that I happen to know that a friend of mine is a spy and I tell anyone this fact, then I can go to prison for 10 years. But (by the reporters reasoning) if I tell a journalist, he can publish that information with impunity and doesn't even have to say where he got the information. Doesn't that seem wrong somehow?
In any case, how does it serve the interests of the country to publish the name of an American spy? The idea of shielding journalists is so that they are free to communicate freely and to report on scandals that need to be exposed to public scrutiny. In this case, the sources that the reporters are protecting were not whistleblowers with knowledge of a scandal. Indeed, the sources ARE the scandal. They are not brave tellers of truth, determined to get a dastardly plot out in the public eye - they are nothing but craven scoundrels bent on settling a score. I would have thought that real journalists would hate being used in this fashion. I know I would.
Wouldn't it serve the best interests of the press to expose these people rather than protect them?
"dumbass, if you can't afford a lawyer, they will appoint one for you.."
Dumbass, not for a CIVIL case they dont. And trade secret *IS* a civil case.
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
As others have already pointed out, there's plenty of evidence that the 3 webpublishers knew well in advance the information they were given by their sources was protected under an NDA. That's not what I'm going to talk about, or freedom of the press. I'm all for it, my wife is a newspaper reporter for chrissakes. No I'm going to talk about the concept of trade secrets and how it applies to our capitalist economy.
Trade secrets are inventions,(new products) and revisions to existing products, if there are more things that might fall under the definition, they don't really matter in this case so don't flame me for omitting a few. If a company invents something(ipod) or revises a currently shipping company product(new g5 powerbook, new powermacs, etc) they are allowed to issue NDAs to their employees to keep their traps shut about them with good reason. If company x finds out about the new products before Apple in this case is ready to release it, and company x copies product and releases at the same time before patents have been issued, then Apple is screwed and loses revenue because of it.
As you may or may not know, under capitalism companies generally invent and innovate new products so that they themselves can gain the revenue from their research. With no trade secrets or NDAs there is no longer an incentive to do research as a company and capitalism fails.
With that out of the way, the judge was right to back Apple, if he hadn't many other companies would be severely put in a pickle fiscally by employees leaking detailed specs to other companies. Our economy would be in shambles, and you would all be out of jobs. Granted there is a bit of a slippery slope implied there but thats the fundamental logic behind the case.
The fact that people are upset about Apple getting a big boost in this stage of the case is absolutely astonishing to me. Freedom woohoo and all but there are limits to every freedom, press, speech, right to arms, every single one of them. The websites in question and the sources should be punished, for different reasons, the sources for breech of contract and the websites for publishing information they knew to be acquired in an illegal manner.
cheese logs keep my wang warm at night.
If you had read the judge's words (or a judge then saying the same) you would have been encouraged to believe that CNN would not release your name. "Unlike the whistleblower who discloses a health, safety or welfare hazard affecting all, or the government employee who reveals mismanagement or worse by our public officials, (the enthusiast sites) are doing nothing more than feeding the public's insatiable desire for information," Judge Kleinberg wrote. Given that Intel's dodgy chips affected the user's welfare, your name would have been protected. Of course, that would not stop Intel from finding you through other investigations - as you suggest they would have.