On Tue, 13 Feb 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote:
In any case, I'm inclined to believe that the First Amendment should not grant special rights to people who call themselves bookstores and journalists. Rather, we should all enjoy those rights. Being an Official Approved Government-Certified Journalist -- and I am one -- writing an article should not mean I have special privileges that only I enjoy and someone from an unapproved newspaper, or a cypherpunk subscriber writing about the same topic, does not.
As usual you get it bass-ackwards...there must be a 'journalist' gene that causes these sorts of cerebral mis-wires. It isn't the store that's being protected. It's the purchaser of the book, the reader to wit. To force a person to reveal their reading habits violates the 1st because it infringes both speech and press. It's that pesky '...no law..' clause that almost (whew!) everyone keeps wishing wasn't there. Trying to voilate a persons civil liberties via a 3rd party doesn't make it any less a violation and it doesn't redirect any culpability to the initiating party simply because they are so removed. There is no concomitent 'Congress shall make no law restricting the manufacture, sale, possession, or use of hobby fish' so whichever law officer it was that compared it to a fish store also failed to catch the distinction. Journalist are scum (like lawyers) they sell their integrity, they deserve no protection and actually get none. If you look at the history and beliefs of the founding fathers they did NOT equate freedom of 'press' with 'newspaper' or 'reporter'. I've forwarded Jeffersons comment on the distiction and value of 'press' versus 'newspaper' already, take Tim's advise and do a little digging in the archives. The reality is the only protection the reporter gets is as a recognized agent of the press owner and the right of the people to know what is going on around them (that thing about you have rights until they impact another). ____________________________________________________________________ Before a larger group can see the virtue of an idea, a smaller group must first understand it. "Stranger Suns" George Zebrowski The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------