Well, yesterday was a very good day for all bloggers :) In the Apple v. Does (Does as in John/Jane Doe, aka we-have-no-clue-what-their-name-is) case, the Appeals Court ruled [PDF] that bloggers are journalists and are entitled to protection under the California shield law that protects journalists by not allowing journalists to be prosecuted for contempt of court when they refuse to name a source.
This is extremely important to bloggers, because it means that, at least in California, we have the same legal protection as any other journalist.
Groklaw, as is usual in important legal cases, has an article with a lot of information (including the ruling in text format), among other things, a link to Lauren Gelman’s post about the ruling. Lauren, frome the Center for Internet and Society, Stanford Law School, sent an amicus brief [definition] (the brief in PDF) to the Appeals Court in this case (Groklaw also participated in the brief), in favour of the bloggers, of course. In her post, Lauren says, among other things, that:
This is a *huge* win! Now journalists can feel safe knowing that they
can protect their sources’ identity no matter in which medium they
choose to disseminate news (as we argued in our amicus brief).
I think that this view will start moving to other States in the US, and to other countries (I hope we get a similar law/ruling here in Mexico some day), and that will not only make us bloggers safer, but, probably, more dareing in what we are willing to say in our blogs…when we are treated as journalists, we can behave as journalists…the real ones, I mean, not the ones that just repeat what the latest press release says.
One of the things that makes blogger-journalists different from the mainstream journalists is that pressuring bloggers is a hell of a lot harder than it is to pressure a journalist…most of us don’t live of this, nor work for a newspaper/tv news show/magazine, which makes it very very hard for people trying to cover up something to lean on a blogger who is trying to uncover it.
So…celebrate during this weekend, and go back to writing (or start writing), let’s make this a fun week, just to thank the California Appeals Court :)
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