The irony of jailing a so-called "delusional" blogger Josh Wolf is apparently lost on Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Finigan.
According to Finigan, who was quoted in a recent news story Wolf is "simply a person with a video camera who happened to record some public events."
Finigan’s statement is ironic because it was just such "delusional" journalist who helped make the founding of this country a reality. The trial of Benjamin Harris publisher of Publik Occurrences both Foreign and Domestick led to the paper being shut down because he had failed to gain permission to print.
The case of John Peter Zenger in 1735 also helped to define the role of a journalist. Zenger was tried, and eventually acquitted of charges of libel and sedition. At the time colonial American newspapers remained under the strict control of the colonial governors. Here’s the British law that gave the governors that authority:
And forasmuch as great inconvenience may arise by liberty of printing within our said territory under your government you are to provide by all necessary orders that no person keep any printing-press for printing, nor that any book pamphlet or other matter whatsoever be printed without your especial leave and license first obtained.
Both men were using the leading communications technology in order to communicate their ideas to fellow colonials. In their footsteps came pamphlet writer Thomas Paine who encouraged his fellow men to join in the movement that would become the American Revolution. Hear these words from 1776:
These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. - The American Crisis (19 December 1776) by Thomas Paine
Paine’s sentiments, or a reasonable facsimile thereof, could easily be found in today’s blogosphere. But Finigan, under his narrow definition of journalist, would seem to be ignoring the contribution of these pioneering members of the nation’s fourth estate.
Had not such journalist as Harris, Zenger and Paine exercised their craft in the way they did, Finigan might not be an Assistant US Attorney. Instead he would be in the service of Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth II.
Even the most churlish reading of the first amendment, namely that freedom of the press belongs to the person who owns the press, would not fail to concede that Harris, Zenger and Paine were indeed journalist.
The difference is that while the colonial era trio labored in a medium that required the use of ink and a bulking printing press, today’s journalist can accomplish the same work through a steady stream of electronic data coursing the internet.
Wolf’s work simply builds on a long and honorable tradition of those who have gone before him.
If there is a lesson to be gleaned from all this, it is the same one I learned several years ago after being subpoenaed by the City of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Simply destroy any notes or work product after they are published (or in this case posted).
Nobody can subpoena something that no longer exists.