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Blogging All the Way to Jail
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.'"
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
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.
Oh, really now?
Politicians are much, much cheaper than that.
You can get $600,000 in sweetheart deals just by donating $40,000 to a House campaign. 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.
"How can he try to hide behind a shield law if he did not record any crime? "
Perhaps because the shield law is about Protecting Unpublished Information and Confidential Sources and specificly "all notes, outlines, photographs, tapes or other data of whatever sort" for the purpose of protecting "a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."
The courts have ask him to produce video footage of a crime that he witnessed and he has refused
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.
You want proof the NYPD edits its tapes that it uses as evidence? Here's the NY Times article (you have to pay):
Here 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.
To be clear, the article you linked to said absolutely nothing about the ACLU being opposed to the recall of Gray Davis. What the article you linked to said was that the ACLU argued that the vote should be delayed until counties still using the punch card system deemed unreliable after the 2000 vote were able to bring better systems online. According to your article, the ACLU's lawsuit was only concerned with ensuring that all votes would be recorded as accurately as possible.
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.