ICE Is Trying to Force BuzzFeed News to Divulge Its Sources
buzzfeednews.com
buzzfeednews.com
(... This comment is not advocacy for their standard procedure.)
Personally, I consider Glenn Greenwald “The Press” these days, everybody else, not so much.
I find Intercept the most interesting and insightful "press" these days, but I also like NYT, WaPo, WSJ (not its opinion section) and Economist.
Now of course that doesn't mean you should blithely believe what they say, or think you're getting the whole picture from any one. But they do all collectively form the press.
The rationale is that it's too easy for politicians/officials to hide things from the public by arbitrarily declaring things as "secret", and that the public has the right to know about this stuff.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._United_S...
These entities care for nothing but power, vying for it every moment, corrupting everything they can corrupt to get more of it.
It is essential to have a spotlight on them exposing when they go too far.
In other words, why shouldn’t we punish whistleblowers?
Because otherwise we would be on a fast track to an authoritarian dystopia.
Journalists don’t give up their sources due to the risks you are highlighting.
Anyway - for a open society to function we need to live in the same factual world and media contribute to that.
Both are based in the first amendment. IMO the press protections are a more legitimate application, particularly wrt to information that is ultimately about public policy.
The Yale Law Journal article cited does argue that even though it's worrysome that there's no federal reporter's privilege, there's plenty of precedent, including constitutional (state-level), statutory as well as common-law protections that can be invoked to throw out this kind of lawsuit.
[1] https://www.yalelawjournal.org/article/the-de-facto-reporter...
Defending the subpoena is only expensive if they defend it.
Exactly. I don't see why that justifies the dismissiveness.
Because it's click-bait selective reporting that stokes outrage. (Case in point: Just take a look at how I'm getting spam downvoted after outlining my position fairly straightforwardly.)
A subpoena is expensive and onerous to fight. Yes, Buzzfeed has the resources to do so. Does your local paper? To dismiss the power and newsworthiness of a subpoena from a major federal agency with all of the financial and human resources (funded by you the taxpayer!) that such position implies is cynical beyond belief. To then further dismiss the criticism of that view as “spam” is revealing.
Have you ever retained an attorney for any legal issue whatsoever? From my experience, your comment is the grave misinformation.
> Even as a non-lawyer
> non-lawyer
Hey @dvt, this is a pretty bad look. I'm not an attorney; I've learned well enough through absurd-on-face comments of my own not to give legal advice when I'm out of my depth... or at all.
This is the position you're in.
Maybe you're confused, I'm not giving any legal advice. First of all, there's no one to give legal advice to; but second of all, it's purely a procedural claim. It's like saying "if you don't pay your traffic ticket, your driver's license might get suspended." Similarly, if you ignore a subpoena, you'll go to a contempt hearing where you'll make your case to a judge.
How that constitutes "legal advice" is beyond me, it's simply a brute fact.
What exactly is freedom of the press?
Well, when a confidential source has their identity revealed it's likely to go pretty badly for them. eg: many corporate and gov whistleblowers being fired + pursued extra-legally, Chelsea Manning thrown in prison, and so on.
So, (most) media organisations seem to resist doing the revealing.
Whether or not that falls strictly under the "freedom of the press" term or not though, is not all that relevant.
The concept of "don't reveal sources" is pretty basic, regardless of the term people use to describe it. ;)
Revealing sources violates the trust those sources depend on to ensure the truth gets reported, and risks harm to those sources.
personally I am tried of the "press" believing they have or should be treated different than anyone else. It should not matter if it was the NYTimes, Buzzfeed, Fox, or JoeBlow Citzen Blog...
You're press, and I'm press too.
Imagine not reporting on the fact that a federal institution is trying to test their limits.
Just because something is likely to be thrown out doesn't mean an agency pushing limits shouldn't be reported. The entire point of the press is to bring awareness to situations like this.
Subpoenaing sources is standard operating procedure for all law enforcement agencies (from the FBI, to ICE, to your local PD). As mentioned in a different post, it's a low-risk, high-reward legal strategy, even though it won't work 99.9% of the time.
It's making a mountain out of a molehill.
If a source reports a war crime, people should be going after the war criminal, not the person that called them out