Ruling: Blog journalists aren't protected by the Constitution

In a scary turn of events, a ruling this week in Superior Court said that blog journalists are not protected by the Constitution. Earth Times writes:

A tentative ruling yesterday by Superior Court judge James Kleinberg is likely to have serious implications for the online publishing industry. In a preliminary ruling on a case filed by Apple Computer against three website publishers, the judge said Apple can force the three website publishers to surrender the names of their sources who disclosed confidential information about the company’s upcoming products.

I love Apple products and I love their ingenuity. But I don't like it when that ingenuity starts violating the open environment that they profess to support. Again, from ET:

By his preliminary ruling, judge Kleinberg had refused to extend to the Web sites the same protection that shields journalists from revealing their unidentified sources or surrendering unpublished material.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation argued their position that the web publishers are journalists and their sources are entitled to protection by the California Shield Law and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Both protect journalists from being forced to disclose their sources.

Apple’s attorney Riley countered by saying that free speech protection applied only to legitimate members of the press and not to website publishers. Freedom of the press was for the press, meaning the traditional media, he said.

Note to bog journalists: Get press passes. I have one. We need to move toward greater professionalism and legitimacy if we don't want to see more of this browbeating (you probably know that Jeff Gannon aka Jim Guckert is planning to sue a few bloggers who outted him using publicly-available information).

Tag: Blogging