Everything online journalists need to protect their legal rights. This free resource culls from all Reporters Committee resources and includes exclusive content on digital media law issues.
Boston College researchers Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre are appealing a First Circuit appellate court decision dismissing their challenge of a subpoena seeking confidential interviews the pair conducted with members of the Irish Republican Army and other members of paramilitary and political organizations involved in the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland. The First Circuit concluded that while the scholars had standing to raise a constitutional challenge the subpoenas, they failed to state a First Amendment claim entitling them to relief. We urge the U.S.
Book author and blogger Robert David Johnson is appealing a U.S. Magistrate Judge's opinion denying his request to quash a subpoena from Duke University seeking confidential, non-published communications between himself and several former Duke lacrosse players and their attorneys. Johnson began writing a blog concerning the fallout from a spring 2006 incident in which a stripper hired to perform at an off-campus house party accused several of the players of rape. Duke is facing civil suits from the former players.
The First Amendment-based reporter's privilege does not extend to a pair of academic researchers working on an oral history project for a Massachusetts university, the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston (1st Cir.) ruled Friday.
In a battle between the public's First Amendment rights and law enforcement's application of policy, the public recently found an unlikely ally in the U.S. Department of Justice when it submitted a letter to the Baltimore Police Department supporting a citizen's right to record police activity.
Promises of confidentiality made to compile an oral history of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland must be upheld by the court to protect the participants, even though the British government says the records contain information about the murder of a mother of ten, according to parties fighting subpoenas in oral arguments before a federal appellate court yesterday.
Two sugar-cane plantation owners from the Dominican Republic must satisfy a higher standard reserved for public figures if they are to prevail in a libel suit against American filmmakers who made a documentary critical of the Caribbean nation's sugar industry, a federal court of appeals has ruled.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston (1st Cir.) has overturned a federal judge's order that a hearing in an illegal file-sharing case may be streamed live over the Internet.
The Globe has a report on oral arguments today in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston (1st Cir.) over whether a federal judge was right to approve live Webcast of a hearing in an illegal filesharing case.
Truth is no longer a defense in some private-figure libel cases in Massachusetts where the "ill will" of the speaker is established -- at least according to a federal appellate opinion issued last week. The court was interpreting Massachusetts state law, not federal law.
The First Amendment rights of reporters covering a February 2006 Federal Bureau of Investigation raid at a prominent Puerto Rican activist's home were not violated when agents allegedly pushed, hit and pepper sprayed them, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.
Moloney v. Holder
Boston College researchers Ed Moloney and Anthony McIntyre are appealing a First Circuit appellate court decision dismissing their challenge of a subpoena seeking confidential interviews the pair conducted with members of the Irish Republican Army and other members of paramilitary and political organizations involved in the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland. The First Circuit concluded that while the scholars had standing to raise a constitutional challenge the subpoenas, they failed to state a First Amendment claim entitling them to relief. We urge the U.S.