Newsgathering

This is the eighth in a series of posts calling attention to topics we cover in the Citizen Media Legal Guide. In this post, we highlight the section on Access to Courts and Court Records, which provides an overview of federal and state laws that grant you the right to access federal and state court records and court proceedings. We also provide some practical tips for getting useful information out of your local courthouse.

If you’re hunting for information, consider a visit to the courthouse, where you can sift through resource-rich court records or attend (sometimes colorful) court proceedings.

Courts are centers for dispute resolution. They are public forums in which societal norms and values, as reflected in laws, are used to address and correct wrongs. While a number of laws govern the court system, none is so deeply-ingrained as the presumption that court proceedings should be open to the public.

If you are wondering how attending court proceedings or combing through court records might be valuable to you, here are several great reasons to consider acquiring -- and publishing -- information available from the courts:   read more »

Back in January, we began rolling out the Citizen Media Law Project's Legal Guide. So far, we've published major sections of the guide covering Forming a Business and Getting Online, Dealing with Online Legal Risks, and Newsgathering and Privacy. This week we published the section on Access to Government Information, which highlights the extensive amount of information available through government sources and explains how both traditional and non-traditional journalists can use various public access laws to gather and make effective use of this information.

To whet your appetite, I've pasted the overview to this new section below:

Access to Government Information   read more »

This is the seventh in a series of posts calling attention to topics we cover in the Citizen Media Legal Guide. In this post, we highlight the section on Recording Phone Calls, Conversations, Meetings and Hearings, which discusses federal and state laws relating to the use of recording equipment in specific private and semi-public settings. We also provide some practical tips for using recording devices, which should help you steer clear of legal trouble.

Using a recording device, such as a microphone, video recorder, or camera, is often a helpful way to capture and preserve information about conversations, interviews, and phone calls in which you participate. It is also a good way to document what takes place in a court hearing or public meeting, whether for personal reference or later broadcast over the Internet.

Where you do your recording, and what you record, will largely dictate what legal limitations apply to your recording activities. It may also be the case (in fact, it is quite likely) that more than one set of laws or limitations might apply to your use of recording equipment. Before concluding that your activities are in the clear, you should read all of the sections listed below that might apply, as well as the section on Gathering Private Information elsewhere in this guide.   read more »

This is the sixth in a series of posts calling attention to some of the topics covered in the Citizen Media Legal Guide we began publishing in January. This past month, we rolled out the sections on Newsgathering and Privacy, which address the legal and practical issues you may encounter as you gather documents, take photographs or video, and collect other information.

In this post, we highlight the section on Protecting Sources and Source Material, which discusses the legal challenges in maintaining the confidentiality of sources and source material and outlines the federal and state laws that may protect you from forced disclosure of your newsgathering materials. We also provide several practical tips for protecting your sources and source material.

The ability to protect your sources and newsgathering materials is often critical to your being able to gather information and inform the public. In the course of assembling information for an article, post, podcast, or other work, you may obtain information that, for a number of reasons, you do not wish to make available to the public.

Ironically, confidentiality may be an essential part of bringing information to the public's attention because as a publisher, you may only be able to gather the information if you promise not to reveal the information's source. For example, reporting that involves the criticism of government and exposure of government and corporate wrongdoing often depends on the use of confidential sources.
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This is the fifth in a series of posts calling attention to some of the topics covered in the Citizen Media Legal Guide we began publishing in January. This past month we rolled out the sections on Newsgathering and Privacy, which address the legal and practical issues you may encounter as you gather documents, take photographs or video, and collect other information.

In this post, we highlight the section on Gathering Private Information, which outlines various privacy laws that may limit your ability to gather private information or otherwise intrude into another person's private space.

Gathering Private Information

If you physically enter a private area, photograph or take video of people engaged in private activities in places where they reasonably expect to be private, or in some other other way intrude into a person's privacy (by, for example, opening the person's mail), you could be liable for a violation of what is called "intrusion upon seclusion." If you collect certain personal data, this can also intrude into a person's private affairs. In the newsgathering context, the actual collection of the data could be seen as intrusion if the method you use meets the four general elements for an intrusion claim.   read more »

Back in January, we announced the launch of the first two major sections of the Citizen Media Law Project's Legal Guide covering Forming a Business and Getting Online and Dealing with Online Legal Risks. This past month we began rolling out the section on Newsgathering and Privacy, which addresses the legal and practical issues you may encounter as you gather documents, take photographs or video, and collect other information. Here is a quick rundown of the sections we've just published:   read more »

Last month, an investigator at Kansas University delivered a search warrant to the Lawrence Journal-World, a highly regarded newspaper in Lawrence, Kansas, demanding access to their computer servers in order to get information about the identity of a user who had posted comments on the paper's website, LJWorld.com. The warrant, which appears to violate the federal Privacy Protection Act, raises serious concerns about governmental overreaching and highlights the need for adequate procedural protections for anonymous online speech.   read more »

Boston Now reports that Peter Lowney, a political activist from Newton, Massachusetts, was convicted last week of violating the Massachusetts wiretapping statute (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 272, § 99) and sentenced to six months probation and fined $500. The criminal case arose out of Lowney's concealed videotaping of a Boston University police sergeant during a political protest in 2006. Apparently Lowney was shooting footage of the protest when police ordered him to stop and then arrested him for continuing to operate the camera while hiding it in his coat. As part of the sentencing, the Brighton District Court ordered Lowney to remove the footage from the Internet.

The Massachusetts wiretapping statute criminalizes "interception of wire and oral communications" and defines "interception" as the secret recording of the contents of a communication through the use of an "intercepting device" without the permission of all parties to the communication. The statute provides that a person who "willfully commits an interception" may be punished with a fine of up to $10,000, imprisoned for up to five years, or both. Massachusetts is among the minority of states that prohibit recording a conversation without the permission of all parties involved. Most states and the federal wiretapping law permit secret recording of a conversatino if one party to the conversation consents.   read more »

Syracuse.com: SU student questions VA security actions. A Syracuse University graduate student taking photographs outside the VA Medical Center says she was questioned and ordered to delete several images by hospital security officers Thursday afternoon. Mariam Jukaku, 24, of Michigan, said the officers also photocopied her university ID and driver's license and asked if she was a U.S. citizen. She wonders if her appearance played a part in how the incident was handled.

Let's be clear: The security officers had no authority to order this woman to do anything of the kind. And if this incident occurred as described (there's no reason to doubt it), it's entirely probable that appearances were part of the reason.

These kinds of paranoid acts by officials do nothing to increase security -- nothing. They only provide a demontration of what others have called "security theater" -- the pretense of protection that does more harm than good.

The NFL just doesn't know when to stop. The Washington Post reports on a new NFL policy limiting journalists' use of video online:

In a move designed to protect the Internet operations of its 32 teams, the pro football league has told news organizations that it will no longer permit them to carry unlimited online video clips of players, coaches or other officials, including video that the news organizations gather themselves on a team's premises. News organizations can post no more than 45 seconds per day of video shot at a team's facilities, including news conferences, interviews and practice-field reports.

Now this policy isn't copyright-based -- the NFL doesn't have copyright in the un-fixed statements of its players and coaches -- but good old real property law. The NFL teams own their facilities, and with them have the right to exclude people physically, as trespassers. So the NFL is telling sportswriters, who depend on physical access to gather the background for their stories, they'll be barred at the gates if they use more than 45 seconds of video online.   read more »