On Sunday, August 26, 2001, at 09:02 AM, David Honig wrote:
At 06:12 PM 8/25/01 -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
I agree that John Young should be considered a reporter. And also a ...
Still, I think it's possible to differentiate between people involved or suspected of being involved in a criminal act (Clinton, Tripp, Condit, perhaps Vinnie, in your example) and neutral observers and commentators.
Ho-ho, but JY is a known subscriber/contributor to the same Conspiracy List as JB, CJ, etc. (As are you..) Ergo, a sufficiently rabid [per|pro]secutor could strip you of your 'neutrality'. (What's to stop Vinnie from starting a website covering the Mob to gain journalists' protections?) What's to stop a prosecutor for arguing that a journalist who publishes mostly in, e.g., lefty mags is not part of the Conspiracy du jour?
What you and Tim ought to consider IMHO is that the 5th amendment's protection against self-incrimination protects everyone, and journalists don't need 'special' status under such a reading.
Except that all it takes is for the judge to grant the witness transactional or use immunity. Or even full immunity (less common, from what I hear). "Mr. McCullagh, the court hereby grants you transactional immunity for your testimony today. Now Mr. McCullagh, please answer the prosecutors questions and give the court all of your notes made regarding this witness." Much on the Net. Here's just a flavoring: "Title 18 U.S.C. ' 6002 provides use immunity instead of transactional immunity. The difference between transactional and use immunity is that transactional immunity protects the witness from prosecution for the offense or offenses involved, whereas use immunity only protects the witness against the government's use of his or her immunized testimony in a prosecution of the witness -- except in a subsequent prosecution for perjury or giving a false statement. Tim again: I'm not a lawyer, but I read about cases like this. And there were dozens of hours of discussion about use immunity, transactional immunity, etc. during recent high-profile televised cases. The notion that a witness can blithely escape having to testify by asserting the 5th Amendment is one of those folk beliefs that just doesn't hold up. --Tim May