...that what
this case really hinges on is the definition of "journalist".
If I'm walking down the street as a regular private citizen guy, and I have a camera and happen to take some pictures of of a crime, then it seems to me that the government is perfectly entitled to subpoena those photos for use in their investigation into the crime.
Now. Let's take this line of thinking. Again, I'm not a "journalist", I'm just Joe Citizen. I snap those pictures (or shoot some video) and want to sell them to the local TV station, and THAT is how the government finds out that I've got them.
Did me selling those pictures to the local TV news make me into a "journalist", and therefore entitled to greater protection under the First Amendment? I think there's a pretty fair argument, on the government's side, that even though the pictures were used by journalists, I'm still not one and therefore can be forced to give them up.
What if I couldn't get anyone to buy the pictures? Plainly, then, I'm not a journalist- I'm just a nitwit with a camera.
What if I didn't sell them to anyone, but shared them with some friends at a barbecue a few weeks later at my house?
And one of those friends was a cop, and he saw them and said "dude, you gotta get these to the detective on the case".
Am I a "journalist" now, because I shared the pictures with some friends? Is that "journalism" and part of "the press" which is given freedom under the First Amendment?
And here's where it can get really sticky. What if, instead of pasting the pictures into my scrapbook at home and passing it around at a party, I post the pictures on an online web page to share with my friends (as so many of us do with Flickr and other digital photography sites)?
When do I quit being Joe Citizen just sharing some pictures and become a "journalist"?
These are not just idle questions. When life brings up something that isn't really exactly covered by "the law", there is a period when the law must adjust and figure out exactly how the new situation should go.
For example, when radio first started, there was probably a period when there was argument over whether or not the First Amendment's clause "freedom of the press" extended to journalists working in radio.
We're in that phase right now, with the Internet and web pages and blogs and so forth.
What delineates a journalist, performing acts of reporting, from just some guy who happens to store his pictures on a web page instead of in a photo album?
Personally, I come down on the side of freedom, and that the guy referred to in the original blog should be given the benefit of any doubt and released.
It's easy for us to act all outraged and upset... but I think we should also remember that we're establishing new law here. It's VERY important that everything go correctly, for us, for the future.