Journalist Jailed For Not Turning Over Footage

[951-Riverside]

http://cbs2.com/topstories/local_story_213161043.html

(AP) SAN FRANCISCO A freelance journalist and blogger was taken into federal custody in San Francisco Tuesday for refusing to hand over unpublished footage of a protest of anarchists vandalizing a police car.

Joshua Wolf, 24, could be in jail until July, when a federal grand jury investigating the year-old incident expires.

The grand jury is looking into a July 2005 demonstration in San Francisco's Mission District organized by anarchists against the Group of Eight international economic conference in Scotland.

[Bluzmann57]

1. Umm...It is now August

so the guy should be out of jail now. And fuck those vandals. They serve no purpose. None. I hope the police catch them and the courts punish them to the fullest extent of the law.

[951-Riverside]

3. ...I think they mean July of next year.

[Solo_in_MD]

2. There is a Federal journalist shield law?

If not, he is stuck

[Robbien]

4. SF Journalist Jailed For Not Aiding Anarchy Probe (of G8 Protesters)

AP / BCN) SAN FRANCISCO A freelance video journalist and blogger was jailed by a federal judge in San Francisco Tuesday for refusing to to hand over to a grand jury his unpublished footage from a July 8, 2005 protest in which anarchists were suspected of vandalizing a police car.

Joshua Wolf, 24, sold the footage to San Francisco television stations and posted it on his Web site. He could remain behind bars until next summer, when the grand jury investigating the incident is due to expire. San Francisco police officer Peter Shields was also injured in the melee, which occured in the Mission District..

U.S. District Judge William Alsup said there is no federal law shielding journalists from participating in grand jury investigations. The judge sided with prosecutors who suspect the unpublished material may reveal who was behind the incident, part of an anarchist-led protest over the G-8 international economic conference last year in Scotland.

Alsup said that although it is not yet clear if indictable federal offenses occurred, such as attempted arson involving a patrol car, "the grand jury has a legitimate right to look into violations of that law."

As marshals went to remove Wolf from the courtroom, Alsup said he wasn't jailing Wolf to punish him. ``The purpose of this is to get you to change your mind,'' the judge said.

Wolf could be kept in prison until the grand jury's term expires in July of next year.

http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_213174005.html

Our justice system is beginning to look alot like a facist system. Take a picture and get "disappeared".

[Kagemusha]

5. Excuse me? Disappeared? We know where he is.

That's more than I can say for some Americans wrapped up in the war on terror.

[silverweb]

6. How silly of him.

He "sold the footage to San Francisco television stations and posted it on his Web site," but wouldn't let authorities use it to investigate a crime of vandalism?

That's hardly 1st Amendment stuff. The guy's a fool.

[countmyvote4real]

7. Sounds like the prosecutors were after any footage he did not post or sell

That assumes there IS some footage that they could not get elsewhere.

[Robbien]

8. Yes, they are after unpublished (therefore private) pictures

Under State law he wouldn't have to turn over the pictures but the prosecutors kicked the case up to Federal court. The case being kicked to Federal is kind of fishy in that they are saying that even though it was State property that was damaged, the Feds provide some funding for the State.

[Hissyspit]

9. Yes, it is. Confiscation of a photographer's film by the government

would be all right with you? Selling the film to other television stations and posting it to his website is part of his press activity. The government TAKING it from him is not.

"In Branzburg v. Hayes (1972), the Court placed limits on the ability of the Press to refuse a subpoena from a Grand Jury by claiming Freedom of the Press. The issue decided in the case was whether a reporter could refuse to "appear and testify before state and Federal grand juries" by claiming such appearance and testimony "abridges the freedom of speech and press guaranteed by the First Amendment." The 5-4 decision was that such a protection was not provided by the First Amendment."

Although this decision appears to apply in this case, note that this decision was about appearing and testifying, not about physical evidence gathered by the reporter.


MORE:

http://library.findlaw.com/2003/Jun/25/132831.html

"But the most disconcerting aspect of the Leggett case is that neither court adequately investigated the actions of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) or balanced the interests of the First Amendment against the government's need for Leggett's research. Indeed, there may have been no need for her information at all. On January 8, 2002, four days after Leggett's release, the U.S. attorney empanelled another grand jury to investigate Robert Angleton. It was able to hand down an indictment in sixteen days without subpoenaing Leggett or her records.

Damaging Blow to Reporter's Privilege

Although this scenario has played out between the media and law enforcement agencies many times before, Leggett's contempt citation and the Fifth Circuit's holding represent an especially damaging blow to the reporter's privilege because the court held that the First Amendment did not apply to her case at all. Although the Fifth Circuit settled in dicta the issue of whether Leggett was a journalist and thus able to claim the reporter's privilege, it held that the case did not turn on that question. Rather, the Fifth Circuit made the sweeping pronouncement in Leggett's case and an earlier reporter's privilege case that the Constitution does not offer any testimonial or material privilege for reporters in the context of a grand jury or even a criminal proceeding.

The Fifth Circuit's recent decisions are in contrast with those of the U.S. Supreme Court, which held in Branzburg v. Hayes that bad-faith grand jury subpoenas intended to disrupt reporters' relationships with their sources violate the First Amendment.<4> In Leggett's case, the court overlooked attempts by law enforcement agencies to use the subpoena power to coerce Leggett to become a confidential informant and turned a blind eye to the policy, embodied in the First Amendment, favoring the dissemination of ideas in furtherance of the public's right to know. The Branzburg holding specifically proscribed such law enforcement tactics as violating the First Amendment. "

[Bozita]

10. NYT: Blogger Jailed After Defying Court Orders

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/02/us/02protest.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Blogger Jailed After Defying Court Orders


By JESSE McKINLEY
Published: August 2, 2006

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 1 — A freelance journalist and blogger was jailed on Tuesday after refusing to turn over video he took at an anticapitalist protest here last summer and after refusing to testify before a grand jury looking into accusations that crimes were committed at the protest.

The freelancer, Josh Wolf, 24, was taken into custody just before noon after a hearing in front of Judge William Alsup of Federal District Court. Found in contempt, Mr. Wolf was later moved to a federal prison in Dublin, Calif., and could be imprisoned until next summer, when the grand jury term expires, said his lawyer, Jose Luis Fuentes.

Earlier this year, federal prosecutors subpoenaed Mr. Wolf to testify before a grand jury and turn over video from the demonstration, held in the Mission District on July 8, 2005. The protest, tied to a Group of 8 meeting of world economic leaders in Scotland, ended in a clash between demonstrators and the San Francisco police, with one officer sustaining a fractured skull.

A smoke bomb or a firework was also put under a police car, and investigators are looking into whether arson was attempted on a government-financed vehicle.

Mr. Wolf, who posted some of the edited video on his Web site, www.joshwolf.net, and sold some of it to local television stations, met with investigators, who wanted to see the raw video. But Mr. Wolf refused to hand over the tapes, arguing that he had the right as a journalist to shield his sources.

more...