Free Republic

A bizarre showdown between well-known indie journalist Josh Wolf and an optometry professor is set to reach its dramatic conclusion Friday in Berkeley Small Claims Court. Cal Prof. Robert DiMartino wants Wolf to reimburse him $1,066, and a judge will decide if he has to. But this dispute is about cash like "Bleak House" is about a will. To Wolf, it's a question of democratic principles. A known First Amendment-hugger, the June graduate of UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism first gained notoriety in 2007 after serving 226 days in federal prison for refusing to give police the video he'd...

Videographer and blogger Josh Wolf was released from prison today around 2:30 p.m. Outside jail this afternoon, Wolf said he was looking forward to eating pizza and drinking beer, as well as shaving his beard and changing his clothes. He said it was easy to lose track of the time in prison -- though he did count. (It was 224 or 225 days in all.) Speaking to reporters (including Jim Herron Zamora from the Chronicle), Wolf said he had read 50 books while in custody and wants to set up program so inmates can blog by sending letters to friends...

JOSH WOLF, the blogger who has spent some six months in prison for refusing to hand over a video he took of a violent July 8, 2005, protest in the Mission District of San Francisco to a federal grand jury, is not a journalist. He is a blogger with an agenda and a camera, who sold a "selected portion" of the video of the demonstration, which left a San Francisco police officer with a fractured skull, to KRON-TV. The day after the melee, Wolf called himself on his videoblog an "artist, an activist, an anarchist and an archivist." He does...

A federal judge assigned a magistrate as a mediator Tuesday to try to resolve the case of Josh Wolf, the blogger who has been in prison nearly six months for refusing to turn over a videotape of an anarchist protest to a federal grand jury. U.S. District Judge William Alsup, who held Wolf in contempt of court in August and has rejected several defense requests to free him, said in a brief order that he was referring the case to U.S. Magistrate Joseph Spero "in the interest of reaching a resolution satisfactory to both sides.'' Alsup did not mention any...

Blogger and anarchist Josh Wolf, spending his 57th day in federal prison today for refusing to surrender video he shot of a violent San Francisco protest, is well on his way to becoming the longest-jailed journalist in U.S. history. To the government, the 24-year-old San Franciscan is hindering a federal grand jury investigation into serious crimes -- an attack on a police officer who suffered a fractured skull during the July 2005 rally and the attempted burning of his patrol car. To Wolf and his supporters, including prominent press organizations, he is the latest victim of a Bush administration assault...

Freelance journalist Josh Wolf has two more days to return to prison or testify and produce the outtakes of footage he shot at a violent San Francisco protest in July 2005, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said today. Wolf, 24, was to have reported to the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin by 1 p.m. today. He received a last-minute order from the court at 11:17 a.m. giving him a 48-hour extension. At a news conference today outside the prison, Wolf said: "Really, the only effect this has -- of sending me to jail prematurely and not allowing things...