Now I'm Pissed!

Alright, I'm back and I'm a little pissed.

Not about my weekend (that was great BTW!) but about THIS STORY I got a link to in an e-zine I subscribe to. The short of it is that a California judge has just ruled that three bloggers may have to reveal their information sources for articles they wrote pertaining to a new Apple Computer product called "Asteroid". Apple contends these bloggers are not actual journalists and hence not protected by the shield laws of that state. The judge refused to say whether they were, or were not, but ordered them to reveal their sources anyway. The judge claimed that their sources commited a criminal act under the state's 'Trade Secrets' laws and hence are not protected under the shield laws.

What a load of shit! How is it that nearly every source of criminal activity in the country is considered protected, except for where it infringes on the purse of a major corporation? How is it that major news outlets regularly protect their sources in government and organized crime (Both of which are crooks if you ask me!) and the Feds regularly provide witness protection to convicted murders, but these three folks can't protect their sources on an upcoming product release? Journalisitc sources need absolute protection, not on a case-by-case basis, but as a blanket protection under law! Without the ability to guarantee the anonymity of their sources journalists cannot do their job and the entire concept of a free press falls by the wayside. I know that under most state's shield laws: sources are not protected when they are party to the commision of a crime. The only 'crime' I see here is a breach of contract by the employees who gave the information to the bloggers. At worst, this is a civil case; not a criminal one and forcing a journalist (yes, bloggers ARE journalists! You bet your sweet little bippy they are, pal!) to reveal sources for it is a frightening precedent to set.

The judicial system seems to be working overtime recently to whittle away freedom of speech laws and it pisses me off to no frikkin' end! Hey, I'll be the first to tell ya' that folks like Jerry Springer and Doctor Laura, etc. are morons, but they have a right to spout their crap, just like I have a right to type out this blog entry! (I'm sure there's a bunch out there who are thinking I'm a moron too!) The day we start allowing corporations to decide how/when/what we can talk about in public is the day this society collapses. These writers did not post copyrighted or vital information, they talked about expected release dates and rumored functions of an upcoming product (A bit of publicity MOST companies would kill for, BTW!) Apple -and other corporations- are attempting to silence these bloggers in any way they can because blogs have worldwide reach without the corporate interdependency that restricts the truthful opinions of major news outlets. In short: bloggers can hammer Apple's piss poor products and cost the company a lot of money. Bloggers are answerable to no one, whereas the CEO of the N.Y. Times, may well sit on the board of Apple and play golf every week with Bill Gates. I won't even go into the conflict of interests caused by the Info-tainment conglomerates like Aol/Time Warner, etc. If you think the journalism in the outlets they control is unbiased, I have some lovely swamp land in Nevada I'd like to sell you . . .

Here's another link to a page with a lot of opinions on the subject. It frightens me how many corporate drones there are in this country. . . [sigh.]

Alright, done bitching now. Camping was very cool, I learned a ton of stuff (particularly about first aid) and I can't wait to implement it on the next campout with the Scouts. As I thought, I got no writing done at all, but one must have a life after all . . . I'll be trying to get some editing in on GS tonight so i'll let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Later!