What is with the notion that an "internet reporter" is any different than a meatspace reporter?
The so-called "internet reporters" are physical people, not some sentient piece of software. As physical poeple, this makes them physical reporters, therefor the law should apply equally, qed. Or are we now assigning different laws to people of different professions, or who use different tools for the same profession?
Good question.
I'm not saying the law *should* be different for Internet reporters, I don't think that it should be. What I am saying - with experience, I am a lawyer who has represented a number of journalists in this type of matter - is that the courts and legislatures are both wary and chary about expanding the scope of shield laws to anything not specifically covered. So if the shield law in a specific state, whether a statute or a judicially developed doctrine, does not already cover the Internet media, it will take some convincing to get it to apply.
Sooner or later, the laws will catch up, but as in most things, the law here lags behind what most of us recognize as the current reality.
Most states have so-called Shield Laws, which provide (limited) protection against revealing sources and/or unpublished information (things said to the reporter but not published in the article. For example, California's Shield law says:
(b) A publisher, editor, reporter, or other person connected with or employed upon a newspaper, magazine, or other periodical publication, or by a press association or wire service, or any person who has been so connected or employed, shall not be adjudged in contempt by a judicial, legislative, or administrative body, or any other body having the power to issue subpoenas, for refusing to disclose the source of any information procured while so connected or employed for publication in a newspaper, magazine or other periodical publication, or for refusing to disclose any unpublished information obtained or prepared in gathering, receiving or processing of information for communication to the public. Nor shall a radio or television news reporter or other person connected with or employed by a radio or television station, or any person who has been so connected or employed, be so adjudged in contempt for refusing to disclose the source of any information procured while so connected or employed for news or news commentary purposes on radio or television, or for refusing to disclose any unpublished information obtained or prepared in gathering, receiving or processing of information for communication to the public. As used in this subdivision, "unpublished information" includes information not disseminated to the public by the person from whom disclosure is sought, whether or not related information has been disseminated and includes, but is not limited to, all notes, outtakes, photographs, tapes or other data of whatever sort not itself disseminated to the public through a medium of communication, whether or not published information based upon or related to such material has been disseminated.
The first thing to do, then, is to check the appropriate state Shield Laws to see what protection they may apply. (As an aside, I am aware of no cases applying the protections of a shield law to an Internet reporter, but none denying it either, the issue has not yet arisen in the courts.) Even if the law does not provide protection, is is a fairly long and well-established tradition among journalists to protect their sources. Part of this is a moral obligation, part is the practical consideration that if a reporter burns one source, word will get out, and that reporter will find it increasingly difficult to work with other sources who want confidentiality.
If the law does not provide protection, it is a tough choice for the reporter or publisher to make; but the reality is that the percentage of incidents when a reporter or publisher actually is jailed or otherwise punished is quite small, though more than -0-.
Well the executive branch may feel ok about easing up on the stupid crypto-export policies this particular week, but the IRS doesn't want 'em to now. http://www.wired.com/news/p olitics/0,1283,37573,00.html
Each time one branch of the US govt wants to loosen up on the crypto regs, another branch starts complaining. Last time it was Janet Reno, and then Louis Freeh. Now the IRS.
Minor detail, but there are only three branches of the federal government, the Executive, Congress and the Judiciary. The IRS, DoJ (Reno) and the FBI (Freeh) all are part of the Executive, they can't countermand what the top Exec. says. (They can try to influence his decisions, but that's it.)
The article does not specify, but it is likely that the restraining order against MAPS was issued on an ex parte basis, with no appearance by an attorney for MAPS. It is not uncommon, and it is a reasonable inference from the fact that MAPS is in California, the order is from a court in Illinois, issued the same day the Complaint was filed.
The truer test of whether this case has any legs will come when MAPS has lawyers in court to defend it. Since it has an open invitation to be sued, one would presume that MAPS will defend itself.
Gervase may be the last of the current crop, I don't know, but the show won't end there.
Just as he's being rescued, the S.S. Minnow, out on a three hour tour, somehow will run ashore, giving viewers a new cast of the Skipper, Gilligan, the Professer, Mr. and Mrs. Howell, Ginger and Marianne.
The Professor will build a beowulf cluster from coconuts, Marianne will get the idea to connect to AOL using all those disks she's been collecting as coasters. The Skipper will activate his GPS system, newly installed since his last charter.
Yet, despite all that's been learned over the years, they'll always just miss being rescued, at least until they've supplied the public with another 20 years of rerun fodder.
I wonder if David Boies' new-found fame is allowing him to start taking higher-profile cases? It certainly stands to reason.
Nope.
Boies has been famous since before many here were born, and always has had his pick of high profile cases. He does Antitrust, he does First Amendment, he does copyright, lots of other things.
Basically, what he does is pick challenging, seemingly unwinnable cases. And then he (usually) wins them.
Finally, someone on/. has recognized that we old farts really did have it better. It is high time that such a prestigious publication as slashdot recognize the truth for what it is.
And, considering that Roblimo is a year older than I am, I'm amazed this has not been addressed before.;-)
OK, so RIAA obviously believes that it can sue MP3Board, it's just done so. But when commenting on the earlier suit filed by MP3Board against RIAA, the RIAA spokesmodel sez that MP3Board couldn't sue RIAA, it had to sue each RIAA member separately.
So which is it, RIAA? You want it both ways, but if you can't have it both ways, which will it be?
OTOH, if the RIAA spokesmodel is correct that it still hasn't been served with the suit by MP3Board, that does seem odd, and at least raises the question of whether MP3Board is serious about that one.
I don't recall if it has been mentioned on slashdot before, but last week, Lessig wrote an amicus curiae brief in support of the mirror site maintainers in the Cyber Patrol/CPHack case.
This guy is an anti-trust specialist, not a copyright lawyer.
Not so.
He has successfully litigated a number of high profile First Amendment cases, the most famous of which probably is Gen. William Westmoreland's libel suit against CBS.
Besides, you gotta love a guy who can afford whatever he wants, but who wears off-the-rack Sears suits, sometimes wears sneaks to court, is dyslexic and never passes up an opportunity to play Craps.
The piece barely scratches the surface of what Boies has accomplished in a long, and very illustious career. Many of us in the biz study his moves carefully, because he is one of the best, if not the best.
For a very long time, he was a partner in Cravath, Swaine & Moore, the bluest of blue-blood NYC firms. He left on a matter of principle when he didn't have to, and one of his stated reasons was so that he could take on cases he found personally challenging, which he could not handle in that firm because of conflicts or other issues.
He has the pick of whatever he wants, and he does not pick cases he is likely to lose. That's no guarantee of sucess here, but you can be sure he did his homework before signing on.
AS one of the programmers who helped write the brief, and who has been a part of the OpenLaw effort since it began on Slashdot, it has been an enlightening experience. I know I have learned lots about the law, but also about our ability to make things happen.
As one of the lawyers who helped (a little) to write the thing, I found it enlightening also.
It is no secret that I was highly skeptical at first, since I've been writing briefs the old-fashioned way for longer than many here have been alive. But I was quite pleasantly surprised with the process and the result, and, giving credit where it is due to Wendy Seltzer, most of the credit does go to programmers, not lawyers.
As those who were involved know, the brief was a lot shorter than it could have been, for good tactical reasons. But I was fairly well amazed at the depth and quality of legal arguments which the non-lawyer participants came up with on their own, backed up by legal research they had never done before.
The OpenLaw Amicus Brief
on
DeCSS Update
·
· Score: 5
It should be noted that the OpenLaw Amicus brief was an outgrowth of posts here on slashdot, and was done primarily by programmers, not lawyers.
It is worth reading for many reasons, not least of which is to show that there are things which slashdot readers can do besides just post their outrage here.
-J, a lawyer who made minor contributions to the brief.
As a lawyer, I am always leery of news reports, without reading the ruling itself. But *if* the ruling says what the report says, and if it stands, I can see how site owners could use it to prevent being scanned by censorware bots.
If more companies like Red Hat would contribute more money to organizations like the EFF and the Censorware Project, those orgs. could help spread the word and inform people about Internet censorship. Knowledge may be power, but a little money doesn't hurt either...
I appreciate the mention, but we don't take donations from any one, we are entirely self-funded. And we don't even have T-shirts.
Then again, if Red Hat were to force $70K on us....;-)
Slashdot Mirror
The so-called "internet reporters" are physical people, not some sentient piece of software. As physical poeple, this makes them physical reporters, therefor the law should apply equally, qed. Or are we now assigning different laws to people of different professions, or who use different tools for the same profession?
Good question.
I'm not saying the law *should* be different for Internet reporters, I don't think that it should be. What I am saying - with experience, I am a lawyer who has represented a number of journalists in this type of matter - is that the courts and legislatures are both wary and chary about expanding the scope of shield laws to anything not specifically covered. So if the shield law in a specific state, whether a statute or a judicially developed doctrine, does not already cover the Internet media, it will take some convincing to get it to apply.
Sooner or later, the laws will catch up, but as in most things, the law here lags behind what most of us recognize as the current reality.
The first thing to do, then, is to check the appropriate state Shield Laws to see what protection they may apply. (As an aside, I am aware of no cases applying the protections of a shield law to an Internet reporter, but none denying it either, the issue has not yet arisen in the courts.) Even if the law does not provide protection, is is a fairly long and well-established tradition among journalists to protect their sources. Part of this is a moral obligation, part is the practical consideration that if a reporter burns one source, word will get out, and that reporter will find it increasingly difficult to work with other sources who want confidentiality.
If the law does not provide protection, it is a tough choice for the reporter or publisher to make; but the reality is that the percentage of incidents when a reporter or publisher actually is jailed or otherwise punished is quite small, though more than -0-.
If ICANN can't even figure out where it is in the geo-world, can anyone expect them to get it right in the cyber-world?
Or, as Firesign Theater said:
How can you be in two places at once when you're really nowhere at all?
Each time one branch of the US govt wants to loosen up on the crypto regs, another branch starts complaining. Last time it was Janet Reno, and then Louis Freeh. Now the IRS.
Minor detail, but there are only three branches of the federal government, the Executive, Congress and the Judiciary. The IRS, DoJ (Reno) and the FBI (Freeh) all are part of the Executive, they can't countermand what the top Exec. says. (They can try to influence his decisions, but that's it.)
The truer test of whether this case has any legs will come when MAPS has lawyers in court to defend it. Since it has an open invitation to be sued, one would presume that MAPS will defend itself.
Just as he's being rescued, the S.S. Minnow, out on a three hour tour, somehow will run ashore, giving viewers a new cast of the Skipper, Gilligan, the Professer, Mr. and Mrs. Howell, Ginger and Marianne.
The Professor will build a beowulf cluster from coconuts, Marianne will get the idea to connect to AOL using all those disks she's been collecting as coasters. The Skipper will activate his GPS system, newly installed since his last charter.
Yet, despite all that's been learned over the years, they'll always just miss being rescued, at least until they've supplied the public with another 20 years of rerun fodder.
"The Internet treats a cuckoo sound as damage and routes around it."
Now that CT has foolishly announced his schedule, you all know what to do. ;-)
But in Atlanta, the new research showed storms popping up around the city on otherwise clear days.
There is an explanation for this.
It is called the John Rocker effect.
(Sue me, I'm a baseball fan.)
Apparently, he's still looking to share his free falling sky-diving life with just the right woman.
Off topic or otherwise, this is a must-see site.
How do you know that it was *another* anonymous coward?
Nope.
Boies has been famous since before many here were born, and always has had his pick of high profile cases. He does Antitrust, he does First Amendment, he does copyright, lots of other things.
Basically, what he does is pick challenging, seemingly unwinnable cases. And then he (usually) wins them.
If only I had been born 30 years earlier ;)
Finally, someone on /. has recognized that we old farts really did have it better. It is high time that such a prestigious publication as slashdot recognize the truth for what it is.
And, considering that Roblimo is a year older than I am, I'm amazed this has not been addressed before. ;-)
But I'm conflicted here, since you and I are fellow Censorware Project Members, and I'd hate to see a CWP colleague in jail.
Besides, since IAAL, you'd probably just try to mooch legal services from me, so I guess I'll pass on the opportunity. ;-)
"Plaintiffs also contend that parachute jumping falls within the right to travel protected by the Fourteenth Amendment."
So which is it, RIAA? You want it both ways, but if you can't have it both ways, which will it be?
OTOH, if the RIAA spokesmodel is correct that it still hasn't been served with the suit by MP3Board, that does seem odd, and at least raises the question of whether MP3Board is serious about that one.
So either Google really is catching up, or Michael needs to change his formula.
The brief (in pdf) is here.
Not so.
He has successfully litigated a number of high profile First Amendment cases, the most famous of which probably is Gen. William Westmoreland's libel suit against CBS.
Besides, you gotta love a guy who can afford whatever he wants, but who wears off-the-rack Sears suits, sometimes wears sneaks to court, is dyslexic and never passes up an opportunity to play Craps.
For a very long time, he was a partner in Cravath, Swaine & Moore, the bluest of blue-blood NYC firms. He left on a matter of principle when he didn't have to, and one of his stated reasons was so that he could take on cases he found personally challenging, which he could not handle in that firm because of conflicts or other issues.
He has the pick of whatever he wants, and he does not pick cases he is likely to lose. That's no guarantee of sucess here, but you can be sure he did his homework before signing on.
Interesting indeed.
T minus three
T minus two
T minus one
To the moon, Alice!
As one of the lawyers who helped (a little) to write the thing, I found it enlightening also.
It is no secret that I was highly skeptical at first, since I've been writing briefs the old-fashioned way for longer than many here have been alive. But I was quite pleasantly surprised with the process and the result, and, giving credit where it is due to Wendy Seltzer, most of the credit does go to programmers, not lawyers.
As those who were involved know, the brief was a lot shorter than it could have been, for good tactical reasons. But I was fairly well amazed at the depth and quality of legal arguments which the non-lawyer participants came up with on their own, backed up by legal research they had never done before.
It is worth reading for many reasons, not least of which is to show that there are things which slashdot readers can do besides just post their outrage here.
-J, a lawyer who made minor contributions to the brief.
No scan, no ban?
I appreciate the mention, but we don't take donations from any one, we are entirely self-funded. And we don't even have T-shirts.
Then again, if Red Hat were to force $70K on us .... ;-)