Reporter's Privilege

After a state appellate court earlier this week denied Twitter's request to stay the proceedings, lawyers for the social networking company argued that disclosing an Occupy Wall Street protester's tweets and subscriber information would negatively affect those who use the social media service.

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.

The U.S. government announced it will not subpoena journalists as witnesses in the prosecution of a former intelligence officer who allegedly leaked classified information.

The University of California Berkeley Police Department has settled with an independent photographer who sued the department after he was arrested and had his photographs confiscated while covering a protest in 2009. As part of the $162,500 settlement, the department has also agreed to change its policies towards the media and train officers about journalists' legal protections.

A federal appeals court allowed a former Detroit prosecutor to continue investigating the identity of a source who leaked information about an internal ethics probe against him to a Pulitzer-Prize winning newspaper reporter. The decision, which was released Friday, overturns a district court’s ruling that threw out the case last year and now leaves a newspaper vulnerable to investigations eight years after a U.S. Department of Justice insider leaked information to the reporter.

A Texas state judge recently ordered a local website publisher to turn over e-mail messages and other newsgathering materials, finding she did not qualify as a journalist under the state's shield law.