There is a case coming before the California Court of Appeals on April 20 that could have significant and severe ramifications for this blog, blogs in general, and online journalism in general. A Santa Clara judge ruled that online journalism is not subject to the same First Amendment protections as "traditional" journalism. If this decision is upheld, it could spell doom for the free speech we currently enjoy online. It would allow a giant corporation to bully a smaller company, through endless lawsuits and subpoenas, to remove journalistic protection of anonymous sources.
Details below (link goes to original story):
Jason O'Grady runs an Macintosh-oriented web site called Power Page. This site, like others such as Think Different, Mac Rumors, and Mac OS Rumors, publish (surprise!) rumors about upcoming Apple products. For Mac users, this can be a fun pastime, trying to guess what "insanely great" product will come out of Cupertino next.
Back in October of 2004, some anonymous person(s) e-mailed O'Grady with pictures and information about an unreleased Apple product that was in development. O'Grady thought the information looked credible, so he posted it on his web site.
Apple responded with a cease-and-desist order, to which O'Grady complied. But then, Apple subpoena'd O'Grady's ISP for the identity of the person(s) who sent the information to O'Grady initially. O'Grady, citing First Amendment journalistic protection, refused. A Santa Clara judge ruled against O'Grady, and the case is now being appealed.
Here's why you should be scared:
This case is not about me, it's not about Apple and it's not about the technology industry. It's about the First Amendment. If we don't have a free press and protection under the First Amendment large corporations can sue any journalist publishing something that they don't agree with. The last time I checked, this was the United States of America - not communist China - and we are protected by a wonderful document called The Constitution.
Imagine if Apple wanted to raid your email in-box then sue you for saying something they didn't like. Something has to be done to protect the press from paranoid corporations bent on controlling the media. This case doesn't affect me, it affects every citizen in the United States.
[emphasis in original]
If the lower court's decision is upheld, it will set a very dangerous precedent that the rest of Corporate America will be eager to follow. It would allow big companies (Apple has annual revenues of $14 billion, and currently holds over $6 billion in cash reserves) to use their massive wealth and resources to effectively bully free speech and a free press into oblivion.
What is most distressing to me is that this is coming from Apple Computer, a company that has built its entire brand image around being "different." I would expect this kind of oppression from a WorldCom or Exxon-Mobil, but Apple?