Posted on 08/01/2006 3:32:33 PM PDT by SmithL
SAN FRANCISCO -- A freelance journalist was jailed today for refusing to give videotapes to a federal grand jury that show an anarchist protest in San Francisco in which a police car was allegedly set on fire.
U.S. District Judge William Alsup found Josh Wolf in contempt of court for failing to comply with a subpoena that the grand jury issued in February for tapes Wolf made of the July 2005 demonstration in the Mission District. Wolf posted some of the videos on his Web site -- thisrevolution.blogspot.com/2006/07/1-year-ago.html -- and sold that footage to local television stations. Federal prosecutors demanded the rest of the tapes, saying they might contain evidence of attempted arson.
Prosecutors contend that burning a police car is a federal crime because the San Francisco Police Department receives federal funds. Wolf and his lawyers accuse the government of manipulating the case to sidestep California's shield law, which allows journalists to withhold unpublished material and confidential sources from prosecutors. There is no federal shield law, and the state law does not apply in federal court.
Wolf, 24, could be jailed until next July, when the grand jury's term expires. Alsup denied his requests for bail or for a 10-day stay while he asks the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn the contempt order.
The case is "a slam dunk for the government,'' the judge said at the end of a 2 1/2 - hour hearing. Noting that the events Wolf photographed took place in public and involved no confidential sources, Alsup said there was a "legitimate need for law enforcement to have direct images of who was doing what to that police car.''
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Interesting.
Charge him with being an accessory before, during, and after the fact.
I think there are some worried arsonists out there. The judge is right --- this has nothing to do with protecting confidential sources. He was a witness to and filmed a crime out in public.
I wonder who he's protecting...
Why stop with a contempt charge? Why not criminal charges? Surely there's something available: Accessory, obstructing the investigation, etc.
I do not like this. The prosecutor is using a loophole to get access to a law that circumvents a more applicable one. I also don't like the general trend by governments in this country to erode the protections of the press.
I don't like anarchists. And I think the practitioners of journalism in this country are hacks, partisan and amateur, and in no ways interested in the wellbeing of their own country over some faux-intellectual excuse for placing one's own self ahead of the many people of their country. I don't like this Wolf person either.
So what? The protections of the press are a cornerstone of the structure of laws upon and around which this country was founded. This sort of end-run weakens it.
Wolf posted some of the videos on his Web site
Therefore, it was "published" already .... albeit by the 'journalist' himself, but published nonetheless. Now it is being subpoenaed as evidence in a federal crime.
Have him report from Gitmo.
"a police car was allegedly set on fire."
This seems an odd use of 'allegedly.'
The police car was either on fire or it wasn't. I think it's safe to say it was. So the question is did someone set it ablaze or did a police car spontaneously combust? Uh....
Doesn't the cheering section here find that a leetle bit of a stretch? All state highway departments get federal funds; does that make speeding a federal crime?
bookmark
To my knowledge, the press has no more right to protect sources or information concerning the commission of a crime than any other citizen.
This is not a new thing...
Looks like Judith Miller of the NYT could be in jail soon.
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