Shield Law? What Shield Law? Police Just Get Reporter's Phone Records

from the how-about-that... dept

Tue, Oct 27th 2009 3:30pm — Mike Masnick

While there are still debates over proposals for a federal shield law to protect journalists from having to reveal sources, California already has a shield law for journalists, but what good does it do if authorities totally ignore it. It seems that may have happened in the case of TMZ's Harvey Levin and the Los Angeles County Sheriff obtaining Levin's phone records in trying to track down who leaked information about actor Mel Gibson's arrest. Levin is pointing out that this does, in fact, appear to violate both state and federal law and is apparently working with lawyers over this. While the Sheriff's department says it spoke with a prosecutor and got a judge's approval to get the records, it's difficult to see how that fits with California's shield law.

Filed Under: harvey levin, journalism, los angeles, shield law
Companies: tmz

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Beta, 27 Oct 2009 @ 4:22pm

more questions than answers
According to the story, the police obtained a warrent from "a judge". Who was the judge who signed the warrent?
And who actually broke the law? The police, the judge, or both? Or maybe the shield laws don't apply if there's a warrent (in which case they're not worth much).
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Sean T Henry (profile), 27 Oct 2009 @ 5:05pm

Re: more questions than answers
"[W]ho actually broke the law? The police, the judge, or both?"

I think this depends on what the judge was told the reason for the warrant was for. If he was lied to then it should only be the police, if the knowingly broke the law then I would say both.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Oct 2009 @ 5:21pm

I think Levin is an ass but he is likely to pursue this since I think he is a lawyer.
Sorry to repeat myself lawyer = ass.
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Loki (profile), 27 Oct 2009 @ 5:26pm

Umm... Patriot Act?
Why do they even need a warrant.. Just claim it's a matter of national security, and bam!! They can do whatever they want, to whomever, at any time...
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Oct 2009 @ 6:08pm

As I recall....
Doesn't the shield law just prevent the police from forcing a reporter to reveal a source? It does nothing to prevent a reporter from revealing the source themselves on accident or purpose through easily obtained records outside their control. Otherwise reporters will end up as a protected class of people which cannot be investigated for any wrongdoings like murder, etc...since their phone records are protected, their homes may contain files...

Sounds tough to balance between protection and reality to me.

/shrug
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Oct 2009 @ 6:20pm

Re: As I recall....
Only problem with that is that you must have committed, or the police must have reason to believe you committed a crime in order for a search of your private information to be "warranted".

Otherwise, it's just big brother looking up your records without due process.

If the police in this case did get a warrant, then I'd like to know what judge signed the warrant, basically saying that there was reasonable cause to deprive this American citizen of his privacy based on the fact that the cops simply wanted to know.
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Anonymous Coward, 27 Oct 2009 @ 10:24pm

The reason I'm against this law
Is that it gives protection to journalists. That's missing the point. The protection should be given to everybody or nobody... a 'journalist' should have no more rights than you or I.

I'm all for a shield law that applies to all of us, INCLUDING journalists.
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Tor (profile), 28 Oct 2009 @ 1:27am

In my country (Sweden) the shield law protects not only the journalist and his right to keep his sources secret but actually makes it criminal for someone to research the sources of a journalist. The slightest hint of even trying to find out and it would be all over the newspapers as a scandal.

Sadly though bloggers have much worse protection, but I guess that's a common theme today.
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Gene Cavanaugh, 28 Oct 2009 @ 9:12am

Shield laws
Great article, Michael. Keep it up.

I hope this gets resolved in a way that protects our freedoms, including journalistic shield laws (which I think should apply to bloggers, as well - I agree completely with you!
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Oct 2009 @ 9:44am

I do not know much about American law, but supposing this was against a Shield law or against the law in some other way... what about the Fruit of the poison tree doctine? Fortunately for the source of the leak, you have very strict some evidence law.
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Anonymous Coward, 28 Oct 2009 @ 10:06am

Re:
Sadly though bloggers have much worse protection,

So how do they define the difference? Does it apply to only some journalists? What about a journalist with a blog?
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Anonymous Coward, 1 Nov 2009 @ 12:25am

Re: Re:
So how do they define the difference? Does it apply to only some journalists? What about a journalist with a blog?

No answers?
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Sharur (profile), 16 Feb 2018 @ 12:51pm

Re: Re: As I recall....
The reporting of the information is legal, but the leaking of the information to reporter may be illegal.

So they may not have to lie to the judge, as they are persuing a legimite investigation into a legitamite crime.

Whether the leaking of this information SHOULD be illegal is another question entirely, but that rests upon the legislature and/or the people, rather than the policy and the judiciary.

The former groups get to decide what the law is, the latter are to enforce and apply it.
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Sharur (profile), 16 Feb 2018 @ 12:53pm

Re:
The Shield law does not prohibit investigating the source; it only prohibits compelling the journalist to name their source.
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