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Blogger Freed After 226 Days in Jail For Contempt
frdmfghtr writes "Over at CNN is a report that a blogger has been freed after spending 226 days in jail — a record for a journalist held in contempt. 'Wolf had been found in contempt for refusing to obey a subpoena to turn over his video from a July 2005 protest during the G-8 economic summit where anarchists were suspected of vandalizing a San Francisco police car. One city officer was struck during the rally and his skull was fractured ... California's shield law allows reporters to keep sources and unpublished material secret. But there is no federal shield law protecting reporters from federal investigations. The National Writer's Union, which represents freelance writers, said in a statement that Wolf should never have been jailed. "The abuses visited on Josh and other journalists are part of an effort by governments at all levels to control the volume, flow and content of the information that reaches the public," the union said.'"
Balancing the rights of journalists and the need for information by the legal system is extremely tricky, and to be honest, I'm not sure where the balance should lie in this case. My gut instinct is that the blogger should turn over the video, but part of me is yelling "slippery slope" inside.
The most obvious standard for turning over material would be "criminal activity only," but that isn't liberal enough -- what happens when the alleged act shouldn't be a crime to begin with? (See, for example, the PATRIOT Act and DMCA, in many cases.)
Interesting? Seriously? He was jailed for something quite related to his blogging (I assume he was video taping the event in his capacity as a "journalist" for his blog). He was /not/ however jailed for driving, so your suggestion is retarded.
Because, as a blogger, he'll want all the freedoms of a journalist, but he's complaining that he's getting the short end of the stick in this particular situation. So, people can either argue that he's not a REAL journalist, so he shouldn't of been held in contempt for keeping information secret, or that everything is fair because he gets all the rights of a journalist, so he gets the responsibility of a journalist, as well. That said, I think it's silly to force someone to show video they have, but also think that it's silly to keep it from the court, unless he's trying to keep it from the court to his own advantage.
Journalist: a person who keeps a journal, diary, or other record of daily events.
Because his arrest was a direct consequence of him posting a video of a protest on his blog. A grand jury wanted him to release the entirety of the video so they could unmask some of the protesters, but he refused. The thing is, California has a law which says they can't do that, while the Federal government doesn't respect that.
D' Oh! Hit submit too soon.
What I meant to post was....
Journalist: a person who keeps a journal, diary, or other record of daily events.
Blogger: a person who keeps a Web log (blog) or publish an online diary
Except in this case Josh is the one trying to hide information. If that tape got out the "peaceful" protestor's PR spin of doing nothing wrong would be shattered.
1. A violent crime has been committed
2. The blogger directly recorded videos in question, so he is only protecting perpetrators of a crime, not innocent bystanders
I don't see how this is different from a regular individual who witnesses a crime and refuses to testify. If we allow this, anyone can claim to be an amateur journalist just because they don't want to testify about their buddies or bother coming to court. And we compare this to a political leak, it would like someone pointing out that one of the Senators is sleeping with underage boys but refusing to reveal which one.
protesters that vandalized a police car.
Since I only post to counter "groupthink", I EXPECT to be modded down.
Since they decided that's what they wanted to be called. Just like someone who sells crab grass to cure a runny nose wants to be considered a doctor. So apparently any time you don't want to tell the authorities something that someone else told you, all you have to do is say "but I'm a blogger!".
So, they kept him locked up in contempt until his senses caught up with his fat ego. I would suggest they do the same to all the other bloggers who think that they're Walter Fucking Cronkite, just because they have a textarea box in their browser that they spew their oh-so-unique thoughts into.
> ...pasting other people's ORIGINAL writing, you are not a journalist.
Did you bother reading the article? This guy was not just a blogger who got the latest digg.com headlines and commented on them. He had a camera and went down in the trenches to obtain original footage. Yet he is not registered as a journalist.
But the thing most people here miss -- even if he was a journalist they could still have jailed him. The law protects him from local police investigations, not from Federal investigations. He was easy prey.
On the other hand... WTF dude, a cop was almost killed and you refuse to hand over the tape?
Nature journal lied in Britannica vs Wikipedia Ask to retrac
By that definition, Anna Nicole Smith would be considered a journalist since she kept a diary.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
And fractured a cop's skull. As far as I remember, cops share the same rights as protesters. I wonder if he'd have been reluctant to hand over the video if it had been the other way around (protester's skull fractured).
Don't withold information from a police investigation. The problem here is that individuals believe they are above the law and are doing it in the interests of the common man. A lot of people are willing to use the system so long as it works for them, then soon as something happens that places them in trouble, all of a sudden the system is a flawed, err, system that shouldn't be pandered to. The truth of the situation is if you know information concerning a crime that has been committed, it is in your interest to speak up, especially if you are a "journalist". We have some darn strange journalists who don't seem to realise they are meant to report the truth. I don't understand the mentality of someone willing to do time for a crime someone else committed, feels very mafia like to me, and we don't want a return to those days...
It has nothing to do with "control of the media"... it's about evidence in criminal investigation. It's not like he was even protecting any sources, anyway, he was just filming a bunch of random people.
Stop! Dremel time!
Refusing to testify and withholding evidence is illegal in most judicial systems around the world. By publishing the video he made public the fact the evidence exists and he's got it. If a judge requests it as evidence of a crime, he's got to give it to the court.
On the other hand, it's funny to see how the media/journalists/periodists/self-called-whatever shriek when any of their "targets" does not disclose information; but they themselves are so adept at withholding whatever they want.
I'm very disappointed by the first dozen or so Slashdot comments. We all know most people who comment don't RTFA but this case is right up the alley of most Slashdotters...
For those of us still in the world with free thinking and actually use the rights afforded to us by the Constitution, this is a worrisome trend. Since 9/11, local, state and federal officers in both uniforms and plain clothes have been monitoring protesters. In particular, they want to know who the leaders and most vocal of the bunch are. This is then followed by the creation of dossiers outlining the activities of these people who exercise their right to dissent against mainsteam political opinions. With the advent of the PATRIOT act and various other "terrorism" related laws, wiretaps, probing of bank records, etc. are used not only to intimidate but silence anything that Big Brother doesn't agree with.
The point all of you have missed is that Wolf's footage never included vandalism of the police car--which was reported by the city of San Francisco to be nothing more than a broken tail light. The assault on the officer was captured only on a photograph by another protester and was also never part of Wolf's footage. The official reason for the subpoena the video was so the panel could see if any other potential crimes were committed. This however wasn't really the case because it was suspected Mr. Wolf knew the identities of people who choose to mask their faces during the protest. Mr. Wolf refused to turn these over because nothing else was needed from those tapes other than the profiling of activists at the protest and he didn't want to be compelled on the stand to give up those identities. Mr. Wolf and his lawyers believe there is no reason to comply with a Grand Jury not called in good faith to subvert his First Amendment rights--the reason it was called was because apparently Federal funds helped to pay for the police car. He stayed in jail for 286 but eventually gave in. This is very worrisome!
Where is the Slashdot group-think now? So have all of you decided that you're now aligned with dossiers and profiling of people who exercise their Constitutional rights? Are we saying that any footage caught in a public place, even if we don't prompt the said incident, is our responsibility? I hope I'm wrong.
I'm no expert, but reading the article seems to indicate that there were no sources anyway--just himself. He took the footage, he published it, he sold parts of it. I doubt "protection of sources" would extend to viewing oneself as a source. Then again, this is a crazy world.
His blog should shed some light on the issues you and others have been asking.
I'm a dreamer, the world is my playpen. But hey, I'm a serious person, I can't dream all the time.
Never used anything besides Windows , am i right ? You should try Ubuntu at least . that's should be easy enough for you .
Slipping shoelaces ?
Extending my last comment, if protection of sources extended to myself, what's to stop me video taping myself performing an act of violence, videotaping myself and then putting it on my blog and when the law comes knocking claim I cannot hand over the evidence because I am protecting my source (me)?
If the video really showed nothing, proove it to the court by allowing only the judge to see it - or something along those lines. You don't have to make it public or even turn it over to anyone.
Since all anyone has is his word it showed nothing, yet he also seemed to be protective of the people who hurt the officer, the court was right to find him in contempt.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
If any journalist can be forced to provide any information (including raw footage of demonstrations and providing sourced) to the police, they will be treated like the police, and we, the public, will get little or no information any more about these events, about these people and their motivations. This is obviously a bad thing.
If just anybody can claim to be a journalist and clam up, police and prosecution will have a lot less evidence to work with and have great problems prosecuting anyone. This is obviously a bad thing too.
The trick is to strike a balance between these public interests. That's a nuanced discussed not ideally suited to slashdot.
One thing you can say is: if this guy withstood 226 days of imprisonment and still didn't turn over the tapes, it seems pretty obvious that the court is taking extreme liberties with this guys personal freedoms, without producing results.
All the more irksome is that the guy went to jail without a real trial. For all we know the tapes, not having been physically entered into evidence, never actually existed, and the whole thing is based on hearsay and a confession.
Of course, the prevailing public mood in any case seems to be "something bad happened, so someone should go to jail". We live in interesting times.
SCO employee? Check out the bounty
Why isn't there something lower than -1, offtopic? There should be a -3, offtopic, flamebait, troll.
If you're the parent poster, or you have ever posted something like that, then you computer should fry itself. You do not deserve it. Your very presence should make computers homicidal(towards you) or suicidal.
I think the problem is that he published (sold?) parts of the tape and, therefore, the existence of the tapes is not in question.
How about this? if you don't like it, don't use it! SIMPLE AS THAT. unlike other OS's, nobody is going to force you to use Linux.
let me guess your age... 13 at max. If you're going to act like an asshole, at least think of something original and get yourself a real ID. At least then I would know who to add to my list of people to ignore.
I suppose you don't get the part where journalists feel that they need to honour the trust of privacy between themselves and their informant. Disagree with that if you must, but what you're saying doesn't seem relevant here.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
The GP poster needs to be modded up for actually know what s/he is talking about. From the Wiki page on :
In a televised interview on February 9, 2007, Wolf and his attorney, Martin Garbus...
Wolf stated during his portion of the interview via phone from prison that he has offered to allow the judge to review "in camera" the raw footage to determine if there's any applicable evidence within the video and the U.S. Attorney's office refused the offer based on a legal technicality. Wolf also said that the raw video doesn't offer any more applicable evidence of the arson or assault charges.
It sounds like a witch hunt and you sound just like another poster who needs a good whack with a clue stick.
If you had actually read TFA (oh noes, people on /. don't RTFA???), you would have seen that the footage this guy was withholding did not contain the alleged crimes authorities are investigating, and he had told them from the beginning that that was the case. If you had read any of the other articles about this case, you would also know that the blogger was not concerned about protecting "some people damaging a cop car and setting it on fire," but rather protecting the identities of the rest of the law abiding protesters who had attended the protest. There were serious suspicions that the government was trying to get this tape as a way of documenting the protesters and possibly flagging them as subversives/terrorists/pariahs-du-jour. He was also concerned with the protection of a journalist from having to reveal sources and showing in Court that those protections extend to freelance bloggers as well. Without those protections, the press turns into nothing more than a mouthpiece for the government's "goodspeak." None of which has anything directly to do with protecting a couple vandals.
Irony may not be the word, but a person asking other guys to suck his dick, and calling those guys fags is at the least... funny.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
So, what makes someone a Journalist, and therefore protected from potential abuses of authority in order to provide the people with the infomation they need for democracy to be something more than a stage-managed farce?
...
Who decides?
There are 3 options:
A) A journalist is someone 'licenced' as such by a government body. I'm sure everyone can see the danger in that...
B) A journalist is someone 'licenced' as such by a media coporation, such as Fox News, CNN,
C) A journalist is someone who *journals* - who records events for posterity and/or to inform the people.
I personally feel that C is the most sensible, and by far the safest for society. In any rate, FTA: "Wolf, a freelancer, sold some footage to San Francisco television stations and posted it on his Web site, but refused to turn over unpublished material." So both B and C would classify him as a Journalist.
-Chris
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/l a-na-goodling7apr07,1,1880249.story?coll=la-news-p olitics-national&ctrack=1&cset=true
Because NY Times sucks, as it makes old articles 'pay for view'
Wow, since when is history for sale? Ahh its only for the rich to know the truth.
Any way... the US govt is evil, etc.. yadda yadda... scum bags , or shit bags.
If Jesus was here today, he would turn those attorneys into instant dust and LOL, be damned, worship the ORI!!!
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
On topic - 226 days is amazing. Can't believe journalists aren't protected...
Informant? What informant? As GP said: "It's a court asking to see video of a crime so that they can arrest some people for bashing an officers head in." If there was an informant - a fact I don't recall even though I RTFA - it is a completely separate issue.
Sorry, but it is parent post that is relevacy challenged.
...the footage this guy was withholding did not contain the alleged crimes authorities are investigating, and he had told them from the beginning that that was the case. That may be true, but it does not get to the guts of the issue, which is who gets to make that decision? Are we really going to grant a journalist the ability to say "I don't think it is relevant to your case, so you can't have it" ?Somebody has to decide if the footage is relevant, and it should be an impartial party - not the jounalist, not the cops. This is why we have grand juries.
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
John 8:32(King James Version)
WTF? That's how it's supposed to work! Information must flow from the government to the people, not the other way around; otherwise it perpetuates tyranny.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
It is not necessarily in your interests as a (scare quote) journalist (scare quote) to speak up. I can think of no better way than to get treated as a plant than to start narcing on you sources. Then what would get published?
I am not a crackpot.
There is no constitutional right to obstruct an investigation. Quite the reverse. Journalist shields laws are inane precisely because of cases like this.
What is a journalist? In an era when every single one of us "publishes" online, why aren't we all journalists? Given that we are, by any sane definition, all we have to do whenever subpoenaed is assert our right as journalists to keep our information to ourselves just in case we want to publish them.
Even prior to this era, shield laws created a special, unregulated, class of citizen: "The Journalist." Unlike every other type of American, Journalists are permitted to keep secrets without oversight. While the government is supposed to conduct all it's operations in public, while celebrities have no expectation of privacy whatsoever, while intimate details of all of our lives have alway been available to anyone who wandered down to the county courthouse, we have decided that noble Journalists are uniquely trustworthy and do not require any scrutiny of their motives and actions?
Feh.
Clear, Dark Skies
One thing you can say is: if this guy withstood 226 days of imprisonment and still didn't turn over the tapes, it seems pretty obvious that the court is taking extreme liberties with this guys personal freedoms, without producing results.
No. What you can say is it hasn't produced results. No extreme liberties were taken. He refused to comply with a testimony order and, like thousands before him, sat in jail awaiting the time he would or they decided they didn't need it any more for some reason. Perfectly legal as it was his choice to not cooperate with bringing felons to justice.
The National Writer's Union, which represents freelance writers, said in a statement that Wolf should never have been jailed.
In other news, the RIAA says that music should never be copied, the Postal Worker's Union says that postal workers deserve a raise, and NAMBLA says that old perverts should be free to bugger young boys.
I understand the desire of bloggers to be taken seriously as journalists, but these shield laws are insane - for all journalists.
Consider: I videotape my buddy raping a girl, and I publish it on Youtube but I black out his face. What sane society would prevent the cops from locking me up till I produced my buddy's name? Similarly, what if the year is 1970 and I just took notes describing the rape and I published them in some mimeographed pamphlet?
The first amendment is not a blanket for covering up crimes.
Clear, Dark Skies
If these journalists really beleive in what they are doing, why not spend time in jail in the rare case where protecting a source is important?
c le/2005/06/27/AR2005062700489_pf.htmlr ces/2004/11/journalists_need_a_getoutofjai/
What makes you think that these journalists don't exist? I have not heard of this person outside of Slashdot and I do read the newspapers.
Here's are couple such people that you are asking about:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/arti
http://www.americanpressinstitute.org/pages/resou
Is it you who decides what types of sources are and are not worth protecting? For example, I really don't like the shenanigans thatt the current White House is doing, but even with the first example, I don't think that a member of the press should be compelled into revealing the source of their information.
If you fear self-incrimination, that's covered by the 5th amendment, not the first. There is no need for a special class of citizen who has special rights that the rest of us don't have.
Clear, Dark Skies
If this guy knows of some "anarchist" (asshole pis ant) commmiting arson or assaulting a police office, then he has a legal and moral obligation to come forward. If he doesn't, then all he to do was give them the tape and testify that he didn't see anything.
Journalist have too high an opinion of themselves. They publish things from "anonymous" sources (made up, fake but accurate) and then hide behind the 1st to avoid getting caught. They spin facts to meet their political agendas (which they all have...ever hear of Advocacy Journalism?)and omit facts that don't back their interpretation of events.
What was best was him talking about his "ethics". If his ethics allow for arson and assault, then I guess I could whack him upside the head and burn his house down around him.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
He was not a journalist, and he was not protecting a source. He was a citizen who refused to cooperate with a police investigation. Not a hero, probably just another victim of his own fantasies and ignorance of what freedom of the press actually means.
Hrm... The BBC called him a reporter so mayhaps that makes it so?
Personally, I believe anyone can call themselves a journalist. There is no international standard and freedom of the press includes any Joe Scmhoe with a blog or a xerox copier.
When the constitution was written, newspapers were basically one page opinion journals written by anyone who happened to own a printing press. You didn't have to go to school, get a license from the government, or have other "journalists" recognize you. Same thing should apply today.
However, I think the key difference was that Freedom of the Press meant the government could not suppress your literature. He wasn't as much as being prevented from publishing as much as he was resisting court subpoena from giving information on it.
Although, what he was doing may not have been covered by Freedom of the Press he stuck by his guns and stuck through it. He could have at any moment gave names and addresses and been a free man, but he choose to actually go through with jail time.
I will give him that... Most of us are hard pressed to bother to vote on election day.
We are lazy and cowards and we have gotten the government we deserved. If there were a hundred thousand more guys like this we'd most likely have a government that stands up for something worth fighting for.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
If you watched the tape in question you would see that there is nothing of interest on it.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
They don't, actually. They have been given rights that the protesters do not (see among other things the sentences for killing one of either group under roughly the same conditions). This is ridiculous, since the police, acting not as private citizens but as representatives of the government, clearly ought to have fewer rights while on-duty than ordinary citizens.
Your post is very distasteful.. what you are saying is if the police demand something from you because they are in the middle of a "investigation" of some kind then you MUST turn that over to them. Perhaps police come to you some say and demand your family pictures.. yes, even that video tape you and your wife made on your wedding night.. If you said NO would you be ignorant of what freedom is?
>> If these journalists really beleive in what they are doing, why not spend time in jail in the rare case where protecting a
>> source is important? (Not this case.)
If you think jail is nice and easy how about YOU try it.
>> Soldiers and police put a lot more on the line every day to protect everyone's freedom. Some things are worth the sacrifice
>> and sometimes the sacrifice is the only way to keep those things valuable.
Name me a war in the last 100 years that our troops have fought for our freedom. WHY in the name of all freeking god were we involved in Korea? Vietnam? and Iraq? Our we protecting our freedom by fighting in Somalia? As we try to force a government on people who do not want one. Our military fights to make politicians and banks rich. Our Military and police don't protect our freedom, they enforce the oppression of our Government.
It's time to wake up.. Our government is plenty tyrannical.. Welcome to the USSR comrade Wolf.
Bringing liberty to the masses. - http://freetalklive.com/
Perhaps the advantage is preservation of a right? Are there other rights you would consider it "silly" to go to jail to protect? In actuality only the State of CA recognizes this right, and the Feds seem to want to go out of there way under this administration to squash any sense of state's rights.
Perhaps you are correct about him not really protecting a source; you made a good argument until you got to the last sentence where you elevated soldiers and police above journalists and perhaps everyone else in society. It is possible for someone to be a patriot and a protector of freedom without carrying a gun. Historically, those societies which included the combination of strong police and military in the absence of a free press certainly did not use their armed "protectors" to support the cause of freedom.
"It's a court asking to see video of a crime", which is wrong, which you'd know if you RTFA.
"This is NOT the same thing as the government suppressing journalism or controlling what information reaches the public as this is spun to sound. "What this is is wanting to identify the people who were legally protesting, so that official and unofficial lists are updated. It would have a chilling effect, though.
"...they're asking him to show them evidence that could lead to the arrest of criminals."Repeating this doesn't make it true.
But, yeah, there were other witnessess to the crime, so I don't entirely get why they were going after him so hard. Nor why it become a federal matter in the first place.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
"I thought this case was about a video blogger not giving the cops a video of some people damaging a cop car and setting it on fire. Now about the government suppressing information." Which is what you were supposed to think. You'd know better if you RTFA. The video didn't have any footage of the damaged to either the police car or the policeman's skull. The police want to be able to get access to all recordings of any event that interests them. In this case, they managed.
"The Law can be wrong, and it's up to the people to change it."
Sorry bud, but I think most of us will agree that setting fire to a police car and giving a cop a concussion SHOULD be against the law. Common sense tells you that you should provide information to the government that leads to the arrest of criminals, and it is immoral to do otherwise.
He is a journalist and he is protecting sources. You need to get acquianted with the facts of the case - read some other posts and make an effort to know what you are talking about before spouting off.
> The 10th Amendment says you're wrong.
And 231 years of US history says you are wrong.
Sure the 10th amendment seems pretty clear... there are many work arounds both legislative and judicial that have caused federal law to trump state and local.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
So anyone who writes down words is a journalist? That's a rather broad definition.
I'd say it should only be a person who has some sort of formal education in journalism (ethics, critical thinking etc.) and does it as their sole occupation.
Maybe the question should be who is not a journalist.
Vandalism and assault are not legal protesting.
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
I call utter bullshit on this! I'd mod you down if I thought that was more constructive than replying, in fact!
In my mind, Josh *is* a hero of a contemporary sort! I agree he was used as a "pawn", but only in government's attempt to railroad citizens into "on demand compliance" with whatever orders they feel like placing.
Why is a publisher of a "blog" any less of a "journalist" than another writer? You think the term should be narrowly defined to people who get published only to dead-tree media!? In the digital era, you simply can NOT hold onto those "old guard" ideas and expect them to be successful. See the RIAA or MPAA if you don't believe this. All forms of media are going digital, and that gives automatic legitimacy to the blogger or other web site publisher - whether or not he/she happens to be getting paid by some big corporation for the articles.
If you looked into this situation, you'd see that this was NOT simply about Josh refusing to turn over the videotape. That ended up being a "side issue" strategy for him. He was refusing to *testify* and potentially get questioned on this case. After he spent a few months in jail already for refusing to testify, then it became clear there was no advantage to turning over the videotape. They'd simply keep in him prison even LONGER once they got it, thinking they were slowly forcing him to comply with everything they asked for.
Every time a "Josh" comes along and is willing to stand up for what he believes in, even to the point of imprisonment, it chips away a little bit further at government's willingness to walk all over the laws of the land to get their way. (Why worry about what's Constitutional or "legal" if you can intimidate people into compliance and not get challenged on it in court, right?)
off topic even more so, but it's because the admins of the site would rather we focus on promoting over demoting - it says so on the moderation guidelines, thus there's no point to demoting something if it's already at -1
A guilty conscience means at least you've got one.
And what is the penalty for refusing to comply with a testimony order? Life in prison? That sounds like unusual punishment to me, which is constitutionally forbidden.
Oh, and he never got a trial by jury either - despite spending 8 months in prison.
Contempt of court should be a criminal charge like any other, and should require a court trial and sentence like any other crime. It shouldn't result in a person being held in prison indefinitely without a trial.
right, but the only reason that this is getting into a federal court is that the federal government directly gives funds to the SFPD for anti terrorist purposes, and now claims that it owns 5% of the police cruiser, so can become involved in the case.
Any reasonable person can see that this is not a federal matter, that it should be 'tried' (it's at grand jury stage) in a California court and that California's shield law should therefore apply.
FGD 135
I guess Maybe I'm just some radical.
I personally think it's ridiculous, tyrannical, and draconian that anyone can be forced to say anything.
If I witness a murder, and I don't want to talk about it, well... that's too bad. it's not my job to be an investigator, and perhaps I have very good reasons for not talking. Such as, self preservation.
But you think it's ok for the government to force me to risk my life for their judicial system? To force me to enter a witness protection program?
If not, then why should the government be able to force anyone to say anything, ever? I could see persecution for LYING on the stand, fine. But for refusing to speak? No way, never, ever.
I don't know the details either, but it does sound like he was doing a piece on a organization, and they may have invited him to the scene under the assumption that he is a journalist covering the group.
regardless it didn't sound like he was being asked to testify on what he saw that day, they had witness to that. Sounds more like they wanted his background on the people involved.
That's it exactly - I don't understand that. Does that mean that the kids putting grafitti on the I-64 overpass near my house are committing a federal crime? I'm going to doubt that anyone is going to claim that, so why is this any different?
Note:People (here & the media) keep bringing up the cop that got assaulted. That was never a part of this case, because it was a state crime... and California has the shield law the federal government is lacking.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
This has practically NOTHING to do with that fractured skull. This case was a federal terrorism investigation, not a case of assault. Assault is a matter of California law. As I gather, Wolf asserts that the federal government has no standing here (though they claim it).
The feds' logic is something like, "A violent crime has been committed, so tell me your password." It's a non-sequitur; the assault is just a pretext. Wolf's refusal is not really related to punishing that crime, and the feds are not going to help the wounded cop either. The feds just want to know who to watch.
A political protest that turns savage is an example of a good thing gone bad. But it is not terrorism.
$META_SIG_JOKE
Lol.. I read the article. Did you read the article summery?
They make it appear as if the problem is he the government jailed him to stop information in the video from getting out. When In fact it is the opposite.
And yes, I see no problem with the police getting access to information of an event surrounding a violent assault with willful destruction of property. Even If the guy claims there is nothing to see on it. But the thing is access, This doesn't mean the government is going to take it and never return it thereby suppressing the information like the article suggests.
Which moderator guidelines are you reading? The one I read tries to tell me to downgrade crap messages. There's no way I could possibly do this.
He isn't withholding information from a police investigation because this isn't a police investigation. It's a federal terrorism investigation. The federal prosecutor is alleging that these people have engaged in terrorism. That is a repulsive accusation: the truth is, the video shows a sad case of a political protest turned violent. Protest is a first amendment liberty ("petition for redress"), and the violence here was a bad thing. But there is no way to color this picture as terrorism.
The assault on the police officer is in the bailiwick of the state of California, not the federal government. Everyone seems to be confusing those two. FWIW I hope California has caught the guy who did this assault.
$META_SIG_JOKE
It's like reading Cicero.
You don't understand the power play that is going on here. This is arguably not really about the criminal justice system, because there is no Federal crime here. A California crime, yes, but not a federal crime. Journalist shield laws are pretty well established -- if you think that is jumping through hoops, then so be it, but yes we do all need to jump through these hoops to try to keep our (already enfeebled) press somewhat healthy and independent. The states already have journalist shield laws; Calfornia has one that has protected Wolf from going through this harrassment at the state level. We need a federal shield law too, apparently -- the Valerie Plame affair is more evidence.
$META_SIG_JOKE
Look into it a bit more. That assault is not the issue. This case was pushed by a federal prosecutor who was not out to provide justice for that police officer (a California state employee, who is protected under California law). He was out to label these protestors terrorists. Which is absurd, and chilling -- something worth resisting. Almost everyone is conflating the assault with the contempt-of-court finding, but they are different.
As I said above, "A political protest that turns savage is an example of a good thing gone bad. But it is not terrorism."
$META_SIG_JOKE
Once they got him in front of a grand jury, the grand jury could ask him anything and he'd be compelled to answer. Without the benefit of a lawyer, either. That's what he was trying to avoid.
When I was studying journalism - television production - our teacher told us to bulk erase our source tapes or reuse them. The idea is that it can't be subpoenaed if it doesn't exist. I'm guessing this is based on his participation in the Kent State riots... but I'm not positive.
And what federal law was broken? It doesn't bother you that the federal government can detain someone for over 7 months because someone wants to get around a state law? Regardless of what you think of the CA law, the federal court overstepped its boundaries.
and I guess I missed the part where:
"It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance." - Thomas Sowell
I do not know if it is codified in Federal law, but when a judge orders you to testify, and you refuse, you are in contempt of court, and the judge may order you jailed you until you comply. That concept predates the United States and exists in all common law countries. (Civil law countries generally give judges even more power.)
The grand jury investigation in the background of all this is a Federal one -- the Federal connection seems rather shaky, but Mr. Wolf does not seem to challenge the investigation's basis. Since it is a Federal investigation, it is in a Federal court, which follows Federal rules, and is not bound by restrictions on California courts. That does not bother me. What would bother me is if California were generally allowed to preempt Federal law.
But what of our responsibility to our fellow neighbors?
We hear so much about first amendment freedoms, but we don't hear about the flip side of crimes that remain unsolved because the investigative ability of law enforcement is hampered by self-righteous individuals.
If I had had my skull cracked by a protester, I would be very angry if someone who saw the incident, or knew the identity of the perpetrator, refused to testify because he thought himself a journalist. If the goal of a journalist is to report the news, why would they refrain from telling law enforcement what happened? Or is it more likely that the so-called journalist is attempting to skew the public's perception of the event toward his own prejudices? If journalists are really supposed to be fair and unbiased, why would they withhold information from both the public and law enforcement?
I understand full well the problem of maintaining individual rights against a police state. But in this case, a journalist was asked to testify to what he saw in public. There was no reasonable expectation of confidentiality between the protesters and Josh Wolf. It was not as if he was asked to reveal the confidential sources to his reporting (which the FBI has done before, btw). He was asked simply to testify to what he had seen in public.
Our first amendment freedoms are important. But this case hinges lightly on first amendment freedoms and heavily upon individual responsibility. Your exercise of your first amendment rights ends when they are used to deny justice to others. This case does not revolve around the crux of the issue of abuse of police authority. Instead, a grand jury compelled him to testify, and he refused. Basically, two branches of government were in agreement, which means that the checks and balances of the system were preserved. So in this case, our government worked as intended. What Josh seems to have forgotten is that his responsibility as a journalist is to preserve justice in society, rather than prevent it.
If we as Americans are not willing to make sacrifices in defense of our liberties, our liberties - Constitutional or otherwise - are already in mortal peril. But we should not forget that our liberties come with certain responsibilities to our neighbor as well. We could not be a free society if the police were unable to maintain order in the streets.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
I find it humorous he spent over 200 days in jail and then turned over the video anyway! Call me flamebait, but "LOLOMFGWTFBBQ WHAT A LOSER" comes to mind. Now if he ends up actually making money off this some how, then good for him. Otherwise, what a waste of time, and I hope he didn't drop the soap.
I agree that law enforcement officers should restrain themselves from doing the same violence to the protesters that the protesters are doing to them, but the policeman still has the same rights as the protesters. This includes, to name just one, the right to life!
I could see this clusterf**k if the government executive branch, AND the judicial branch, were trying to SILENCE the blogger, but this seems to be a simple case of refusing to provide evidence in a federal investigation.
OT:
The fact that the last 46 years (40-Dem) has seen the feds manipulate the states into accepting federal funding, our taxes, to finance the local police department's equipment, only shows how big we have allowed the government to get. Or possibly, how stupid we are for not keeping our congress under control. If congress mandates actions to the states, but also provides the funding, they own it!
Look at the educational system as an example. The more the feds mandate, the more it costs, and the more the feds pay BACK to the states, and the worse the educational system gets. Education was supposed to be a local effort, but in NE State Law requires n-hours of multicultural education to graduate, but without any requirements to be able to read, write, or do any math...
Former geek, now I can rest...
I tried, but it required Quicktime which isn't on my system, because of MY security concerns. He could have ANY number of exploits on his webpages. QT seems to "open?" every QT item on the page...
Former geek, now I can rest...
However, I think the key difference was that Freedom of the Press meant the government could not suppress your literature. He wasn't as much as being prevented from publishing as much as he was resisting court subpoena from giving information on it.
But by putting him in jail, the government effectively prevented him from publishing further, therefore curtailing Freedom of Press. Perhaps this was this judge's (and those who pay him?) main motivation here? To silence someone until the topic they talked about cooled down a bit?
After all, how is this different from any 3rd world country? Someone there writes something their government won't like; government throws him in jail for whatever reason (not necessarily related to his journalistic activities) - end of journalistic criticism; and this journalist is furthermore discredited as a criminal, should he ever try to criticize the government again.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
Your concern is backwards. According to the US constitution, all powers not delineated by the constitution are reserved to the states and the people, not vice versa.
Torture also predates US law and might have been used to force Mr Wolf to testify. Although it is illegal (in most cases), clever prosecutors might find a way to get around the law, just as they did with the protection for journalists. After all, getting a conviction while staying within the letter of the law is all that matters. Not upholding the spirit of the law, right?