What we’re reading
No free PACER as U.S. lawmakers exclude proposal from spending bill. Another notable and unfortunate exclusion from the omnibus bill was the Open Courts Act. That bill would have provided free access to PACER, the service federal courts use to provide online access to court records. Currently, PACER charges $0.10 per page, a number which has no correlation to any cost of administering the poorly designed and rarely updated site.
Congress instead reduced judicial transparency by passing the Daniel Anderl Judicial Security and Privacy Act, which purports to keep judges safe by allowing them to request takedowns of their personal information, broadly defined to include, for example, where their spouses work. The likely unconstitutional law will inhibit reporting on conflicts of interest (Ginni Thomas, for example). Not only that, the fact the federal judiciary supported a law like this diminishes judges’ credibility whenever they are called upon to decide a case involving First Amendment freedoms.
Protester terrorism charges come amid legal battle over other arrests of demonstrators, journalists. A freelance journalist was reportedly arrested while covering a protest of an Atlanta “public safety training center” before being released without charge. He reported that his notes were also seized by police.
That’s bad enough, but the article in the SaportaReport also contains shocking video of police threatening another reporter with a trespassing arrest unless he either deletes footage or agrees to tell the police’s side of the story. Police eventually back down but not without threatening the reporter that “I’m sure our paths will cross again.” The video is illustrative of how police use petty offenses they don’t enforce against non-journalists as a pretext to bully the press. Officers are not judge, jury and executioner — even assuming the journalist trespassed, they have no right to unilaterally convict him and impose an unconstitutional “sentence” of destruction of news footage. They obviously knew better, which is why they didn’t follow through after the reporter stood his ground.
Globe journalist forced to testify despite First Amendment concerns. A court forced Boston Globe journalist Joshua Miller to testify about his reporting on a Harvard admissions scandal. FPF had joined a proposed amicus brief opposing the subpoena that the judge ultimately allowed. Miller’s testimony was limited to authenticating his published articles (as opposed to giving up confidential sources) but all subpoenas of journalists cast a chilling effect on First Amendment freedoms. There is little benefit to counter that significant cost because most news reporting is, by nature, hearsay, which is inadmissible in court. Prosecutors should build their own cases rather than piggybacking on the hard work of journalists.
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