First Amendment Is Not An Excuse to Abet Criminals

J.J. Jackson* | September 1, 2006

I thought this story was absolutely insane!

A reporter has information about a crime that he caught on tape. He then refuses to cooperate with police and let them look at the tape claiming somehow that his “first amendment” rights would be infringed and then goes to jail.

(09-01) 09:34 PDT DUBLIN — Freelance journalist Josh Wolf was released on bail today from a federal prison where he had been held since Aug. 1 after challenging a grand jury subpoena that demanded outtakes of videos he shot at a San Francisco protest.

Wolf’s advocates, who included national journalist organizations, saw the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals order as a sign that the court is prepared to reconsider the question of reporters’ right to protect confidential sources and unpublished material from compelled disclosure in federal court. - San Francisco Chronicle

What he caught on tape allegedly was

videos of a July 2005 anarchist demonstration in San Francisco’s Mission District against an economic summit that was taking place in Scotland. During the protest, a police officer was hit on the head and suffered a fractured skull. A federal grand jury also is investigating the alleged attempted burning of a police car, which federal prosecutors say would be a federal crime because the Police Department receives money from Washington.

Ok, so once again we have someone trying to make the case that if you either commit a crime or help someone commit a crime you can be immune from prosecution IF you are journalist! Again, this sound a lot like what I talked about in The Gray Old Benedict Arnold when I asked: “If Julius and Ethel Rosenberg had started a newspaper and published the classified information they had acquired in that paper instead of passing it covertly to the Soviets would they still have been guilty of treason?”

This is like claiming that if you rape a child in the privacy of your home, kill her, chop her up into little bits and make her into chili that you are protected from prosecution because of private property rights! Not only should this so-called reporter be locked up but he should be put in solitary confinement and have his meals slid through a slot in the door until he helps catch the thugs responsible.

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Linked to Stop the ACLU’s Friday Free For All

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Released:03 November, 2003

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