New Jersey Case Looks At Whether Bloggers Can Protect Sources
from the who's-the-media-these-days? dept
There have been a number of cases recently that have tested whether various laws that protect journalists from having to give up their sources also apply to people publishing content online in forums, email groups or blogs. The latest, sent in by someone Anonymous, is taking place in New Jersey, where a woman who revealed a security breach in the software of a company called Too Much Media is being sued for slander in revealing the breach. There are numerous issues with the lawsuit, including the oddity that they're suing for slander for online comments, since slander is for spoken words, whereas libel is normally applied to the written word. It's also odd that they're suing considering the fact that they don't deny the security breach existed, but dispute the claim that customer info (including credit card details) were exposed, because they claim the security breach was brief and no info was compromised. That seems like a pretty weak defense.However, the real battle seems to be over the attempt to determine how the woman, Shellee Hale, found out about the breach in the first place. She's refusing to give that up, claiming that she has a right to protect her sources, just like any journalist. And while Hale writes multiple different blogs, and has written for many mainstream publications (including the Wall Street Journal and Business Week), Too Much Media claims that she doesn't deserve protections afforded to journalists because she wasn't working for any real publication and is just a blogger. The article quotes someone who says that if the court sides with Hale:
"then everyone is a journalist and the privilege becomes meaningless."I don't see how that's actually true. In fact, I'd argue the other way. It's not that it becomes meaningless, but that it becomes very, very meaningful -- especially in an era where we're looking for new ways to prop up investigative journalism. If everyone's a journalist, and everyone has a reasonable expectation that their sources are shielded, then we're much more likely to continue to root out corruption. If this protection is somehow reserved for some "special" credentialed people, then it becomes that much harder to expose corruption.
Unfortunately, it appears that the judge in the case is almost entirely computer and internet illiterate, needing to ask for explanations for a variety of things during the court proceedings. He seemed entirely confused by the very concept of people blogging for personal interest:
"Why would a guy put all this stuff on a blog? Does he have nothing better to do?" Locasio asked. "Does he get paid?"The judge, who apparently is about to retire in a couple months, also didn't understand the difference between blogs, message boards and forums, and was apparently unfamiliar with instant messaging. It's difficult to see why someone entirely unfamiliar with the technology should be able to judge a case like this, where understanding what's happening online is crucial to understanding what the case is really about.
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Filed Under: bloggers, journalists, new jersey, shellee hale, sources
Companies: too much media
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Justice is blind, and is quite often ignorant.
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Re:
If the judge is thinking the blog is actually different since its online and not print, here is what to do ask what news papers he reads. After he answers get out a laptop and pull up an online edition of a major news paper. Ask if this is still a publication.
publication –noun
1. the act of publishing a book, periodical, map, piece of music, engraving, or the like.
2. the act of bringing before the public; announcement.
[Dictionary.com Unabridged]
Next when he says yes but that it is different since they have printed versions.(If he said no that ruling could possibly take away the right to protect sources for any paper that is published online depending on the ruling.)
Pull out a printer proceed to print out an article from the "news paper" then print the blog.
Now present this "evidence" of print to the judge and ask what the difference is other than the web address.
Further more if an argument is brought forth that since a version is not printed by the company and distributed it does not count just argue from a business perspective (less overhead) and for environmental(less trees cut down, less fuel use from transportation).
I fully think that with the right agreements and TEACHING the judge about the series of tubes we call the internet, this case will be ruled in favor of Shellee Hale.
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Possibility to defend oneself
It seems to me that this kind of laws are often intended for a situation where it's difficult for the affected party to respond to the facts/accusations. Shouldn't one take such aspects into account?
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Re: Possibility to defend oneself
Stupid, I know.
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Blogger's Rights
Shellee Hale
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Why should the blog's reputation have anything to do with legal protection? If "journalists" from the National Inquirer get the same protection as those from the New York Times, then why should protection for bloggers be tied to their reputation?
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I would absolutely love it if "journalistic integrity" became synonymous with journalism in general again, but that's not gonna happen.
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Hmm
How about a rewrite of the source protection into something else, where it's not about whether you're a journalist, it just stands that if you want to provide source information to ANYONE but do not want to be named, it is up to the journalist/blogger/whoever to independently corroborate the information, and the without corroboration of at least one additional named source, you hedge the verbage of the story/post so that you don't fall under libel/slander offenses?
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The Judge
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Re: The Judge
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Question
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Re: Question
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Re: Question
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Re: Re: Question
Typo of the day!!! I'm sure you meant hearsay, but I immediately thought of Salem...
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In that case it should be declared incompetent and recused.
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Root out Corruption? Not likely.
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Re: Root out Corruption? Not likely.
Said more colloquially, having a college degree doesn't make you smart.
And besides, what is also not clear is how you would ever define who deserves the protection and who doesn't in any sort of fair, repeatable way.
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legal attack on blogger nothing new, but always serious issue
At the time, about 6 years ago, I was the Chairman of the Journalism Division for the NY Local of the National Writers Union. The NWU (UAW - AFL/CIO) was then, and is even today, this nation's only labor union (as opposed to a club, guild or self-help) for freelance writers.
Some personal background may explain my passion on this issue. 19 years ago this week, I was arrested off the street and held in a concrete box for four days, then in a military prison for three weeks, in a third world country, as a journalist, because I would not give up legally acquired information that exposed high-level corruption. Unlike Ms. Hale or Mr. Trummel - but perhaps like Roxana Saberi, the young woman now in an Iranian prison, I was physically and mentally abused. Unless you have been the object of such abuse, you have no idea how painful it is. Only my burning anger sustained me in a three-week hunger strike that eventually lead to my release and flight from that country.
But to continue my point, around 6 years ago, an NWU member, one Paul Trummel, had been arrested and put in jail, charged with, among other things, contempt of court for refusing to take down his web site that contained allegations against certain people in Seattle. As with many First Amendment cases, Mr. Trummel was not the most appealing person to work with. He was - and for all I know may still be - cantankerous, confusing, often irrational and even nasty. Some of his writings include anti-semitism.
The rights I rise to defend are not his, but yours and mine. Keep in mind, I am not defending his actions towards others, his opinions, his behavior, his words or his way of dealing with other people. I only was, and still am concerned, about freedom of speech for everyone, regardless of employment or lack of it.
In defiance of the judge who put him in jail, Paul Trummel moved his site to a server in Sweden and refused to take it down, even after many weeks behind bars. Some published reports said he did take it down, ignoring the fact that he had simply moved it out of the US. He eventually spent 111 days in jail, including 25 days, incommunicado on solitary confinement.
Meanwhile, I was in a unique position, as owner of a web site building and hosting company, to replicate his web site on my own servers based in the US. I wrote to the judge and invited him to mail me a summons and said if he did, I would come to his Seattle court at my own expense and dare him to jail me, too for posting the same material that offended him. Of course the judge was both too smart and too much of a coward to take up that offer.
The legal defense that Paul relied on was simply that the Bill of Rights does not say that one must be an employed journalist to claim their protection. Nor does being a journalist, self-proclaimed or not, shield one from libel where someone believes they have been libeled.
Thomas Paine was not a journalist, nor was John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, nor almost any of the signers of the Declaration of independence and the US Constitution.
You can see the "offending" web site and Trummel's various public appearances and commentary by many others, in this Google search:
http://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGLS_enUS306US306&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&am p;q="Paul+Trummel"
Be prepared - as regards his own web site (ContraCabal.Org)- for a jumbled, confusing mess of long-winded, discursive, winding, argumentative, poorly organized and totally wild pages and links. But hold on to this simple fact. He was within his rights - and yours and mine - to say whatever he wishes as long he can defend it as truth. And if he did not tell the truth, there are legal remedies that punish malicious or careless false allegations.
Eventually, after many others rallied to the issue (if not the man) the Washington State Supreme Court ruled totally in his favor. I have no contact with him since then, so can't say what else may have transpired but, given that his web site is still online, I can only assume he is still alive and as obstinate and noisy as ever.
BTW - TechDirt did comment on Trummel back in 2006 (http://ww.techdirt.com/articles/20020620/2226202.shtml), but apparently was not informed of subsequent developments.
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Journalistic Privilege
Shellee
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Another Blogger Case In New Jersey Fighting Public Entity/Debt Collector
SJ Mills
caipnj.org
caipnj.blogspot.com
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