<![CDATA[Wired News: No Protection for Bloggers:
Earlier this week, a three-judge federal court appeals panel upheld a ruling in which Judith Miller of The New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine were sentenced to up to 18 months in jail for refusing to disclose their sources to a grand jury investigating a leak that disclosed the identity of a CIA agent.
Most ominously for the blogosphere, Judge David B. Sentelle, in addressing reporters’ privilege, asked if it protected “the proprietor of a web log: the stereotypical ‘blogger’ sitting in his pajamas at his personal computer posting on the world wide web his best product to inform whoever happens to browse his way? If so, then would it not be possible for a government official wishing to engage in the sort of unlawful leaking under investigation in the present controversy to call a trusted friend or a political ally, advise him to set up a web log (which I understand takes about three minutes) and then leak to him under a promise of confidentiality the information which the law forbids the official to disclose?”
The judge seems concerned that bloggers (in pajamas, no less) might be used by their sources.
That’s from page two of a very good article by Adam Penenberg about bloggers’ claims to journalistic privileges are realistic or even very valuable. Solid dissection of the issue. The problem with his argument is that it concludes that today’s laws will always be the law (he points to the fact, as I explained in my recent primer on defamation, that the laws protecting journalists are largely local and illusory); I think it’s important to find a simple financial mechanism for defending self-publishers (i.e. bloggers), because it is only through the courts that these privileges will be won. And it will take a very long time for this evolution. Most of us will be dead before the idea that journalistic privilege is the feature of corporate employment.]]>