Pat, Would I have been covered under the law? Possibly, due to the fact that I sold stringer footage of the protest that night, but even that is unclear due to the addition of the word "substantial" to the text of the law.
I've discussed this briefly with one of my attorney's and he's a little more optimistic than I am, but yeah, we're basically all on the same page here. This of course, doesn't mean that you're not protected under the free speech provision of the first amendment, but it does mean that if the government comes after your unpublished materials or wants to know what you discussed with your subject off- camera under the promise of confidentiality then you've got almost nothing in federal court. If this shield bill goes through and becomes law then those who make their living off journalism *will* be afforded a slightly greater level of protections but the law is far from perfect in terms of how it will protect them too. Basically watching this law progress has left me feeling even more hopeless about our government and politics -- it doesn't help that my race for mayor has been a similar voyage. But the important thing is that I don't give up, and I'm never going to give up... Josh On Oct 17, 2007, at 4:25 PM, Patrick Cook wrote: > Hi everyone: > > On 10/17/07, Jay dedman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > The US House of Representatives recently passed a Federal Shield > law for > > journalist. > > It's doesnt seem to please anyone fully, but it is a start. > > > > The interesting part is how they defined Journalist: > > > > In its current form, the law protects only "a person who, for > financial gain > > or livelihood, is engaged in journalism," which involves the > "gathering, > > preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, > > reporting, or publishing of news or information that concerns local, > > national, or international events or other matters of public > interest for > > dissemination to the public. > > > > So this could include bloggers if what you do is regularly cover > topics as > > your livelihood. > > So basically put - Unless I'm missing something here, the Josh Wolf's > (Sorry to bring up your name here Josh if you're reading this) of the > world *aren't* considered "journalists" as defined under this law. Am > I correct? > > Perhaps someone who's in the legal profession could jump in here? > > Assuming I am correct, this isn't acceptable. There's a little thing > called FREE SPEECH. Congress needs to realize this. > > Then again, we *are* talking about a Congress who, according to Air > America, has a deplorable ELEVEN PERCENT voter approval rate, so.... > > Cheers :D > > -- > Pat Cook > Denver, Colorado > PODCASTS - > **NEW VLOG** AS MY WORLD TURNS - http://asmyworldturnstv.blogspot.com/ > PAT'S REAL DEAL VIDEO BLOG - http://patsrealdeal.livejournal.com/ > PAT'S HEALTH & MEDICAL WONDERS VIDEOCAST - > http://patshealthmedicalwondersvideocast.blogspot.com/ > YOUTUBE CHANNEL - http://www.youtube.com/amwowttv/ > THE PAT COOK SHOW - http://www.livevideo.com/thepcshow > THE PAT COOK SHOW (Video Podcst) - http://thepctvshow.blogspot.com/ > THE PAT COOK SHOW (Audio Podcast) - http:// > thepcradioshow.blogspot.com/ > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
