Wired: Why Wikileaks doesn't qualify for "reporter's privilege"

[pnwmom]

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/oped-wikipriviledge/

SNIP

The appeals court ruled that Madden didn’t qualify for the privilege, and laid out a three-part test that’s become the standard:

Anyone claiming the privilege:
Must be engaged in investigative reporting.
Must be gathering news.
Must have had “the intent at the inception of the newsgathering process to disseminate the news to the public.”

The court didn’t fill in all of the blanks, but it did say the test “does not grant status to any person with a manuscript, a web page or a film.” Other federal courts, before and after Madden, have said the same thing and made clear that the medium doesn’t determine whether someone can claim the privilege — a website is as valid a news vehicle as a newspaper.

Each prong in the Madden test is a hurdle for WikiLeaks to jump. Two of them wouldn’t be problems, because the site’s stated purpose is to disseminate information to the public, and its content is often newsworthy. The “investigative journalism” hurdle is the one that would trip up WikiLeaks.

Investigative journalism — according to journalism scholarship and a body of case law — involves more than dumping documents. It requires people to make an understandable story out of a mountain of information, to exercise editorial judgment, and to engage in analysis. Those activities are evident in the privilege cases around the country that followed Madden, and anyone engaged in those activities, journalist or not, can stake a claim to the privilege.

SNIP

[baldguy]

1. You can't draw a map of a mountain if you're not allowed to look at it.

Or if it's very existence is a state secret.

[MH1]

2. If you're going to reveal that state secret anyway,

I guess you might as well make a map of the mountain.

[pnwmom]

3. I doubt that that argument would fly in a U.S. Court, given the precedents. n/t

[baldguy]

4. US courts leave a lot to be desired when it comes to truth and justice.

If you hadn't noticed.

[johnaries]

5. Exactly.

Investigative journalism — according to journalism scholarship and a body of case law — involves more than dumping documents. It requires people to make an understandable story out of a mountain of information, to exercise editorial judgment, and to engage in analysis.

Dear Wikileaks, in the words of Yoda: "You... are... reckless!"