Josh Wolf appeal fails
p2pnet.net News:- Vlogger Josh Wolf went to jail after refusing to give US authorities a video from a 2005 protest tied to a meeting of Group of 8 leaders.
And now a federal court has denied his request for a re-hearing.
Wolf is one of three reporters named Journalists of the Year by the Society of Professional Journalists. But as he said in his acceptance speech, “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to make it tonight to accept this award. But I just couldn’t leave my live-work loft. I’m sure the food there tonight will blow the roof of whatever I will be eating here.”
He’s currently in “coercive custody” at the Federal Detention Facility in Dublin, California, says his web site, which goes on:
He is not charged with any crime. He is not serving any sentence.
The United States has jailed him in the hopes of “coercing” him to give a Federal Grand Jury a tape, which he already has stipulated does not contain footage of the specific event the Grand Jury claims to be interested in. He has offered to let the judge in the case review the tape to verify his stipulation. This is apparently not good enough. It is unclear what the Grand Jury is looking for.
Josh feels the jury wants to use his tape to conduct a fishing expedition, seeking to identify political dissidents, protesters, and anarchists. Having covered protests for several years now, Josh enjoys a level of trust with participants which allows him an access denied to other journalists. The grand jury’s desire to pick through his outtakes represents a severe threat to that access and is in violation of the California Shield Law intended to allow journalists to protect their sources.
The decision by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, “means that the blogger, Josh Wolf, could be kept in jail until July, when the term of the grand jury expires, said his lawyer, Martin Garbus,” according to The New York Times.
“If that happens, Mr. Wolf, who has served 88 days, will be the longest-incarcerated journalist in recent American history, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Vanessa Leggett, a freelance journalist from Houston, served 168 days in 2001 and 2002 for refusing to surrender information about a murder case.”
Wolf was jailed for the first time in August, granted bail, and then thrown back into prison when his bail was revoked. So he could again be playing craps in his prison cell with Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, as SFist put it.
“There is a war on journalism and I am a POW,” says Wolf in his SPJ acceptance speech.
“I am not the first. And I will probably not be the last. But I’d like to thank the Northern California chapter of SPJ for recognizing how crucial this matter is and for honoring the resistance of Mark, Lance and myself by naming us Journalists of the Year.”
Go here to see the film that started it all. We also have a copy here, just in case.
(Thanks, Julie)
Also See:
went to jail – US blogger jailed, August 2, 2006
The New York Times – Jailed Freelance Journalist Loses Request for Rehearing, November 17, 2006
SFist – Wolf Appeal Denied, September 11, 2006
First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win ~ Mahatma Ghandi
November 19th, 2006 at 12:04 pm
I am exceptionally proud of this man for his stance and balls against the US department of injustice.
I wish I could help.