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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.'"
This is flatly outrageous. If every one of us gives a buck to this guy's legal fund, we could actually change federal policy. Even if the court rules that the feds acted properly, it's only a buck. Instead of a soda or a scratch ticket, try gambling on something important today.
-1 raving lunatic; +6 subGenius... Things even out...
The whole jurisdiction issue aside, it seems to me that things are working as they are suppose to.
Jurisdiction is the issue.
KFG
- If you don't like how the laws are written, that's fine, then lobby to get them changed.
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.
"If you videotape a crime then you are obligated to report it. "
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.
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The reason journalists get that privelege is to maintain a free press. "Unpublished material" often includes details a journalist has recorded about people who have only agreed to talk to the journalist with the proviso that their details be held confidential. If the government was able to take that information by force, people would no longer believe a journalists assurance of confidentiality. If that's the case, then people will no longer talk to journalists about issues that could get them in trouble - like government whistleblowers, for example. If the government is able to inspect journalists unpublished materials, then nobody would ever go to a journalist to reveal damning information about government activities.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Well I just read TFA and I didn't see a reference to his mother continuing to blog as the reason cited for this being a federal case. My understanding from reading TFA is that the footage that Josh shot was of G8 protestors lighting a police car on fire. Because the Fed Gov gives money to CA for "anti-terrorism" which is then used to fund things like police cars this is now a federal matter. Becasue we all know a guy who is politically active but doesn't agree with the current ruling party is just a half step away from Osama Bin Laden. Especially when he is prone to carryng a video camera with him everywhere he goes.
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
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
The US is still a democracy. Revolutions are simple. Get more then 50% of the vote. Get more then 2/3 the vote and you can completely rewrite the government to whatever you damn well please.
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.
The world is not this simple. It is not black or white. Analogy are fine for helping to describe something, or explain something, but not for judging whether something is right or wrong.
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.
Are you a US citizen? I don't mean to sound rude, but your post oozes with idealism and a certain lack in understanding of how US politics works. You seem to understand how its supposed to work, but it doesn't work this way. There are two political parties in power that for all intents and purposes might as well be one. They do a really good job of keeping all the power to themselves and locking out any independants/third parties. They both claim to have differing agendas (and to a small degree actually do), but when it comes to anyone proposing some real change it won't happen. The US is in need of a revolution something to streamline and open the government. You call american voters indifferent, wouldn't you be indifferent if your only choices were coke and pepsi and you really wanted something altogether different than a cola?
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.
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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.
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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 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.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Thank you.
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.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Im not sure what your definition is, but here are a few definitions to keep you occipied.
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.
"Don't mess with him, he taunts the happy fun ball."
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
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
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.
Any sufficiently well-organized community is indistinguishable from Government.
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.