{"id":213,"date":"2006-08-22T14:18:40","date_gmt":"2006-08-22T21:18:40","guid":{"rendered":"\/?p=213"},"modified":"2007-05-16T14:08:03","modified_gmt":"2007-05-16T21:08:03","slug":"feds-assault-ca-reporters-shield-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=213","title":{"rendered":"Feds Assault California’s Reporter’s Shield Law"},"content":{"rendered":"

Josh Wolf<\/a> is the blogger who has been sitting in a jail cell for refusing to turn over video he took at a public rally. Now Peter Scheer at the California First Amendment Coalition<\/a> is weighing in on the question of states rights:<\/p>\n

If I were Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger or California Chief Justice Ronald George, I would be deeply troubled by these developments—not only because of the First Amendment issues at stake, which are huge, but because these federal actions against journalists in California represent a wholesale usurpation of state sovereignty. The Bush administration, which has been justly criticized for attempting to enhance executive power at the expense of Congress, is now eviscerating states’ rights in order to expand the power of the federal government.<\/span><\/p>\n

This case has been questionable from the start. The Feds justification for getting involved is that a police car, which was paid for partially with federal funds, was damaged. Anyone not presently in a persistent vegetative state can see that this was just a pretense to get around California’s shield law for reporters.<\/p>\n

By taking this fight to the governor, Scheer makes the point that this tactic effectively invalidates the state law. A reporter can’t know in advance whether an encounter with a source would lead to the feds or the state claiming jurisdiction in a future legal proceeding. Consequently, the only safe course to take would be for the reporter to avoid the encounter entirely. What use, then, is the state’s shield law?<\/p>\n

Obviously this does not serve the principles of freedom of the press and the people’s right to know. And by stepping on the toes of states sovereignty, it calls out for leadership form Sacramento.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/strong> The Society of Professional Journalists voted to donate<\/a> $30,000 to Wolf’s legal defense, saying:<\/p>\n

“This case is evidence of a disturbing trend in which federal prosecutors are attempting to turn journalists into arms of law enforcement,” said SPJ President David Carlson. “It cannot be allowed to continue. The public’s right to know will be forever harmed.”<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Josh Wolf is the blogger who has been sitting in a jail cell for refusing to turn over video he took at a public rally. Now Peter Scheer at the California First Amendment Coalition is weighing in on the question of states rights: If I were Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger or California Chief Justice Ronald George, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[14,1,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-press","category-general","category-scandalous"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4Ijg-3r","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9958,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=9958","url_meta":{"origin":213,"position":0},"title":"GOP Rep Says Laws Prohibiting Animal Cruelty Are ‘Exactly What Our Founding Fathers Wanted To Avoid’","author":"Mark NC","date":"6\/20\/2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In 2008 California passed the Prevention of Farm Animal Cruelty Act with a 63% majority. The new law established humane confinement standards for certain farm animals including egg-laying hens. A subsequent law extended the standards to all eggs imported from other states for sale in California. Now, this democratic expression\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2252,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=2252","url_meta":{"origin":213,"position":1},"title":"Iowa GOP Seeks To Strip Ronald Reagan Of US Citizenship","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/29\/2010","format":false,"excerpt":"In a Declaration from \"We the People\" of Iowa the Iowa Republican Party declares that... \"...the federal government has grown too large, too intrusive and too oppressive to the point that government now stifles the productivity, the freedom, the ingenuity and the very spirit of the American people. We declare\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":539,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=539","url_meta":{"origin":213,"position":2},"title":"First Amendment Repealed For Students","author":"Mark NC","date":"7\/30\/2007","format":false,"excerpt":"A report in the Chronicle of Higher Education states that the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the former editors of the student newspaper at Kansas State University in a First Amendment case: \"The students asserted that the university had violated their First Amendment rights by removing their faculty\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Censorship"","block_context":{"text":"Censorship","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=56"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":198,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=198","url_meta":{"origin":213,"position":3},"title":"Lock Up The Bloggers","author":"Mark NC","date":"8\/4\/2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Josh Wolf is in trouble. The San Francisco journalist\/activist is in jail on contempt charges for refusing to comply with a federal subpoe0na. The Feds want to see a video he took of a protest where a cop was injured and some property damaged. I've been struggling with the merits\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Free Press"","block_context":{"text":"Free Press","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=14"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1266,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=1266","url_meta":{"origin":213,"position":4},"title":"Carrie Prejean Dishonors The First Amendment","author":"Mark NC","date":"5\/12\/2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In last month's Miss USA pageant, Carrie Prejean replied to Perez Hilton that she believed that marriage should be defined as between one man and one woman. That response ignited a controversy that extended well beyond her role as Miss California. The controversy has since snowballed into a soapy opera\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Censorship"","block_context":{"text":"Censorship","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=56"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4079,"url":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=4079","url_meta":{"origin":213,"position":5},"title":"James O’Keefe Invokes The Punk’d Defense","author":"Mark NC","date":"3\/17\/2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Serial liar and video manipulator, James O'Keefe, is taking an odd approach to his his defense on charges of making unlawful, recordings. The charges were filed in California in a case involving former ACORN employee Juan Carlos Vera, who was falsely portrayed in a heavily edited videotape as assisting O'Keefe's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "General"","block_context":{"text":"General","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?cat=1"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}