From Rick Knee: Update on jailed Calif. freelancer

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors Rules Committee plans to conduct a
public hearing next Thursday on a resolution calling for the federal
government to respect First Amendment free press guarantees.

The session is to take place at 10 a.m. in city hall room 263.

The Bush administration has taken its assault on freedom of the press to
San Francisco:

-- Video journalist/blogger Joshua Wolf was jailed on Aug. 1 for refusing
to give unedited footage of a July, 2005, anti-G-8 rally to a federal
grand jury. The case is under appeal in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals.

Law enforcement authorities are seeking Wolf's tape because, they claim,
it could shed light on an altercation that took place during the rally,
during which a police officer was allegedly injured and a patrol car was
allegedly damaged in a possible arson.

Wolf used the shield law in the state Constitution to fend off a Police
Department effort to obtain the tape.

But there is no federal shield law, and federal authorities are claiming
there is federal jurisdiction because the SFPD receives some funding every
year, thus there is partial federal ownership of police facilities and
equipment.

The Chronicle last Thursday ran an editorial under the headline "Free Josh
Wolf:"
here.
For the latest information on Wolf, visit his Website.

-- Chronicle reporters Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams are resisting
a federal grand jury demand to identify who fed them information in the
BALCO sports steroids probe in which Giants' slugger Barry Bonds might be
implicated.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White postponed ruling on the matter Friday
but pointed to a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that declared reporters
must identify their sources to federal grand juries in criminal
investigations.

Both cases have frightening implications. Forcing reporters to identify
confidential sources, and/or to turn over unpublished/unaired notes,
photos, video outtakes, etc. will intimidate people who want to expose
wrongdoing by the power elite, or who want to exercise their First
Amendment right "peaceably to assemble and to petition their Government
for a redress of grievances."

The cases underscore the need for a federal shield law. And, in fact,
shield-law bills have been brought in both chambers of Congress.

The Senate is considering the Free Flow of Information Act of 2006
(S.2831), introduced by Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) and co-sponsored by
Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Arlen Specter
(R-Pa.).

The House version (H.R. 3323) is co-sponsored by Mike Pence (R-Ind.) and
Rick Boucher (D-Va.), and is considered the stronger of the two in terms
of the protections it would provide to journalists. Both bills represent
an improvement over the status quo and merit our support.

Details on the measures are available at the Reporters Committee for
Freedom of the Press web site; the URL specific to the bills is
here .

Rick