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Interview With Jailed Video Blogger Josh Wolf
Video blogger and independent journalist Josh Wolf has been in a federal jail for 170 days for refusing to turn over to a federal grand jury a video of a San Francisco demonstration. On Feb. 6 Wolf's length of incarceration set a new record for US journalism. "Democracy Now!" has an interview with Josh Wolf from his jail cell. If federal authorities can jail bloggers with impunity, it does not bode well for the future of citizen journalism.
A grand jury or a court can order you to produce damned near anything it wants. Being a jouralist (or a blogger) is no shield, or haven't you kids been watching the Plamegate/Libby trial?
And this is a good thing. You can't have justice without first establishing the truth and for that you have to be able to present ALL of the evidence. I really can't see why journalists think they are some sort of fscking priesthood set above all other instituitions. Get over yourselves, you are mostly talentless hacks anyway.
This idiot was issued an order to produce evidence, he refused and his butt is in jail. And that is exactly where he belongs, for his refusal to comply with one of the most basic responsibilities attached to citizenship.
Democrat delenda est
If you refuse a legal subpoena then you go to jail. It's got nothing to independent journalism or even protecting his sources - at this level of the game, they want to see the tape. Maybe he'll be interviewed for information about the people on the tape at a later date, but that's not the issue here. Go to jail for (in some weird sense) "protecting your sources", not for witholding evidence, if you want to make a statement.
This feels like seriously biased reporting.
Physicist, consultant, science communicator
What we're seeing here is an overzealous US attorney who wants to be able to show fragments of the tape to the grand jury, while suppressing other segments, in order to selectively support only his side of the argument. Don't forget that the courtroom is not about justice. It's about two teams, with money and careers to maintain, who need to create legal briefs which will ultimately give them the win.
Josh and his attorney want the tape to be shown to the judge first presumably so that the judge can see the _entire_ situation. The US attorney wants the tape for himself so that he can show only what he deems fit to the grand jury.
It's very likely that the tape contains evidence which would show an escalation of events--unnecessary force or police brutality which initiated the subsequent violence. The US attorney, of course, would only show the subsequent violence.
Duh.
the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
You know I read the article before the comments, and I'm quite surprised to see how many comments here are dissing this guy and supporting "the man" on this one.
You guys are living in very scary times right now: illegal wiretaps, perpetual warfare, a criminal executive branch passing no-bid military contracts to stakeholders in the very same government... And it's a well observed phenomenon that journalism is under fire in the US.
What he did was certainly not in his own best interest, for sure. But I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss his patriotism. He is making the tough calls at a time many journalists are asleep at the wheel.
A government is a body of people notably ungoverned - AC
If this were a state supoena investigating the attack on a police officer, I would agree that he should have showed up. If it were a genuine investigation of an inury offense, it would be carried out by state law enforcement and involve a state grand jury. The fact that it's a federal investigation by a terrorism task force investigating a civil demonstration - that is frightening. Eevn more frightening considering the stretch the government used to call it federal.
What he is fighting for is to change exactly the sort of mentality people have that says when the government comes calling, the automatic answer is to give them what they want.
I thank God daily that I am not American. Please understand, I don't intend to bash Americans, but I am scared to death of the police state that is forming. Gitmo makes the Japanese internment camps of WWII look like quilting bees. It frightens me so much that I'd even move out of Canada just to get further away from that, except for people like Josh Wolf. He's being asked for the wrong information by the wrong authorities and he's standing up and saying no, this isn't right. People like him are the only thing that gives me any hope that maybe Canada can win the fight to keep this from spreading North.
"Last I checked, unemployment was at record lows."
1. Bush changed the rules for counting the unemployed. 2. Many people are either limited to part-time, or have had to settle for a "job" at Walmart, or both.
"Gasoline is nearly back to $2 a gallon."
Still a bunch higher than when Bush took office. Big surprise that an oilman in the oval office led to higher prices.
"Home ownership is among the highest (possibly THE highest) in the entire world."
Yeah, and too many people are upside-down on their mortgages. Get ready for the next S&L bailout.
"Americans can go to school, work hard, become successful, more readily than anywhere else in the world."
That was true once. I don't believe it any more.
"My god people...what the fuck do you want?"
Government accountability, to the people, not to the corporation. The bastards in Washington are destroying this country.
"These people don't want everyone to be happy...they want everyone to be equally miserable. Worthless turds."
Either you've been duped and you don't even know it or, more likely, you're just an anonymous troll.
Last I checked, unemployment was at record lows.
That is what the numbers say. But it's not reflective of the actual situation. Most measures of unemployment only consider people who are considered "part of the workforce", and actively trying to find a job. Those same measures tend to define somebody who has "left the workforce" as a person who has not worked in three to six months, even if they are actively searching for a job.
Thus in many regions, especially in the Rust Belt (which has been hit hardest by the moving of manufacturing overseas), the official unemployment rate is quite misleading. In such regions it's quite common for people to not find work for a year or more. And so they're officially considered to have left the workforce, and thus are not counted in the unemployment statistics. While you may have 50% of the workforce without jobs in such areas, an unemployment rate of only 4% to 6% is commonly given, as that's the number of people who are either just getting into the workforce (ie. high school graduates), or who have been laid off in less than six months.
Gasoline is nearly back to $2 a gallon.
In Texas, perhaps. But not in the rest of the country. I drove from NYC to Detroit and back a week ago. Gas prices ranged from $3.25 a gallon in Michigan to as high as $4.50/gallon in rural Ohio and Pennsylvania. I think the lowest I saw was about $2.75, and that was near Detroit.
Home ownership is among the highest (possibly THE highest) in the entire world.
America has experienced a housing bubble over the past decade. Yes, many new houses have been built, and many people have begun living in them. But those people don't actually own their homes. Many such buyers have had to take on a 35 to 40 year mortgage. Some are even at the point where they have to go into massive credit card debt to cover their non-mortgage living expenses. Just because lending institutions have been very willing to give out mortgages recently it does not mean that a larger portion of the population are actually home owners. There only ownership in such a situation is that of a bank or other financial institution owning large amounts of homebuyer debt.
Americans can go to school, work hard, become successful, more readily than anywhere else in the world.
That's not really the case. Higher education is far too expensive for most Americans. Coming out of a 4-year college program with $160,000 in debt, even after scholarships and bursaries, tends to put people in a pretty terrible position. Compare that to places like Canada, Australia, the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and even Russia. Students coming out of universities in those countries are just as capable as American graduates, but face nowhere near the financial burden (both before attending and after).
My god people...what the fuck do you want?
I think they may want people like you to take a look at the facts. Yes, CNN and FOX News will tell you again and again that the economy is doing great, unemployment is low, and every other country is a shithole compared to the US. But that just isn't the case. It's not reality.
our courts are for investigating innocence and guilt in committed crimes . . . not for finding out if a crime was committed in the first place.
Of course they are. A primary function of the courts is to interpret the law. In other words, the law says X, the person did A as established by the evidence at hand, does A actually fit X or not? Since laws are written in human language they are ambiguous and it's the job of the courts to figure out if the actual situation fits the law or not.
A grand jury, part of the court system, exists solely to gather evidence and determine if it was likely that a crime was committed.
You seem to be under the impression that in a trial the facts of the crime are fixed and the only question is the identity of the criminal. This is not how the system actually works.