Free Republic

In a decision that could set the tone for journalism in the digital age, a California appeals court ruled Friday that bloggers, like traditional reporters, have the right to keep their sources confidential. A panel of three judges said in a 69-page decision that a group of bloggers did not have to divulge their sources to Cupertino's Apple Computer Inc., contending that the same laws that protect traditional journalists, the First Amendment and California's Shield Law, also apply to bloggers. Siding with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a high-tech legal group that had filed the appeal, the judges said that Apple...

The Democrat-controlled panel investigating Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.’s hiring and firing practices cannot legally issue subpoenas to identify the mysterious Internet figure known as MD4BUSH, a key request made by Republicans. Assistant Attorney General Robert A. Zarnoch, counsel to the General Assembly, said Thursday that the Special Committee on Employee Rights and Protections does not have the legal authority to subpoena records from a Web site where former Ehrlich aide Joseph F. Steffen Jr. made comments about Baltimore Mayor Martin O’Malley’s marriage. Steffen, an Ehrlich aide, was fired earlier this year after discussing O’Malley (D), who is running for...

A federal law to protect journalists from having to reveal their confidential sources is necessary no matter what, Tom Curley, president and CEO of The Associated Press said Tuesday. "It's nuts to see reporters going to jail for upholding professional standards," he said at the National Press Club. "We're not asking for an exception just for us. We're asking for an exception that already exists."

Jailed Reporter Miller Seeks Shield Law By KEN RITTERAssociated Press Writer October 18, 2005, 1:23 PM EDT LAS VEGAS -- New York Times reporter Judith Miller defended her decision to go to jail to protect a source and told a journalism conference Tuesday that reporters need a federal shield law so that others won't face the same sanctions. Miller was jailed 85 days for refusing to reveal the source who disclosed the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame. "Ultimately we protect sources so people will come forth -- so people will know," she told the national conference of the...

Armstrong Williams was castigated in the Press for taking advertising money to advocate a program he was already advocating. The crime? He didn't "disclose" his financial "relationship" with the Education Department. So why is it that the Press can discuss the shield law in a manner that can only be described as ADVOCATING it, without disclosing "Oh by the way, we reporters and anchorpeople who are reporting this? We're the major beneficiaries of this law. This law is seeking to give us an exemption that other Americans don't have. This law won't for example protect bloggers...just us." Personally, I think...

AUSTIN - For years journalists have been hesitant to lobby for a shield law to protect their notes and tapes, but now is the time, many say, before it becomes too late. "We run the very real risk of seeing our reporters and photographers and editors jailed for simply doing their jobs," said Donnis Baggett, publisher of the Bryan-College Station Eagle and legislative chairman of the Texas Daily Newspaper Association and the Texas Press Association. "We are on dangerously thin ice." A Senate committee heard testimony last week on a bill that would give journalists a qualified privilege for the...

WASHINGTON — A federal judge Wednesday held five journalists in contempt of court for refusing to disclose the names of their confidential sources for reports about a nuclear weapons scientist under government investigation in 1999. U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ordered the journalists, including a reporter for The Times, to pay fines of $500 a day until each divulges information about his sources to lawyers for Wen Ho Lee, who worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. The order will not be enforced while it is being appealed.