National Lawyers Guild Condemns Attack on Free Press

For Immediate Release July 13, 2006
National Lawyers Guild Condemns Attack on Free Press

San Francisco video journalist Josh Wolf is being charged with civil
contempt for exercising his first amendment right and refusing to
provide a federal grand jury with video footage he shot at a protest
last summer. The Guild believes that the grand jury is being improperly
used to obtain materials which would normally be protected under
California’s Reporter Shield Law. *The civil contempt hearing is
scheduled for July 20th at 1 p.m. before Judge William Alsup and the
National Lawyers Guild (NLG) will host a press conference at noon in
front of the Federal Building—450 Golden Gate in San Francisco on that
day. *

The US Attorney’s Office, led by Assistant US Attorney Jeffrey Finigan,
are attempting to force Wolf to testify before the grand jury and hand
over a video tape of a protest that occurred in San Francisco’s Mission
District last July.

“My client’s political activity and free speech activity in the Bay Area
as a journalist and this subpoena, with its associated threat of jail
time for noncompliance, has an incredible chilling effect on his and
other journalist’s freedom to gather and disseminate information of
groups who espouse dissident beliefs,” said Attorney Jose Luis Fuentes,
of the Oakland based Siegel & Yee firm, who is representing Wolf on
behalf of the National Lawyers Guild.

The use of federal grand juries to target journalists and political
activists who are critical of the repressive domestic and international
policies of the United States government is an attack on democratic free
speech activity. The implications of Josh Wolf’s case go well beyond a
single journalist or protest. “Like the Judith Miller case or the BALCO
case this is about the government’s ability to take an independent and
free press and treat it as an investigatory arm of the government,” said
Carlos Villarreal, Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild San
Francisco Bay Area. “The people of California have made it clear through
our shield law that we prefer a free press that doesn’t have the
government constantly looking over its shoulder.”

California’s shield law, according to a recent court decision on the
matter, “is intended to protect the gathering and dissemination of
news.” In that decision, the California Court of Appeals in San Jose
confirmed that the law protected internet bloggers just as it protected
corporate news reporters. Federal protections are not as strong.

“People protesting or on strike for better wages or marching for amnesty
should feel free to do so in front of journalist’s cameras, just as they
should feel free to talk to journalists,” said Wolf. “A free press
benefits all of us,” he said.

Court documents and past news articles can be found at
http://joshwolf.net/grandjury/