Pa. Seizes Paper's Computer Hard Disks

[Clara T]

Pa. seizes paper's computer hard disks
The Attorney General's Office says they may show evidence of a felony: unauthorized use of a restricted Web site.
By John Shiffman
Inquirer Staff Writer

In an unusual and little-known case, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office has seized four computer hard drives from a Lancaster newspaper as part of a statewide grand-jury investigation into leaks to reporters.
The dispute pits the government's desire to solve an alleged felony - computer hacking - against the news media's fear that taking the computers circumvents the First Amendment and the state Shield Law.

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"This is horrifying, an editor's worst nightmare," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Washington. "For the government to actually physically have those hard drives from a newsroom is amazing. I'm just flabbergasted to hear of this." The grand jury is investigating whether the Lancaster County coroner gave reporters for the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal his password to a restricted law enforcement Web site. The site contained nonpublic details of local crimes. The newspaper allegedly used some of those details in articles.

<snip>

Senior Deputy Attorney General Jonelle Eshbach argued that this was not a case of a journalist's right to protect a source but an attempt to use the First Amendment to shield a crime. "We know the source," she said. It is a password-protected Web site, she said, essentially "a bulletin board in a locked room, and it is getting into that locked room and seeing the bulletin board that makes this a crime."

At the hearing, another lawyer for the newspaper, Jayson Wolfgang, said the search was illegal, and troubling.
"The government simply doesn't have the ability or the right, nor should it, in a free democracy, to seize the work-product materials, source information, computer hard drives, folders with paper, cabinet drawers of a newspaper," he argued.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/states/pennsylvania/counties/chester_county/14084455.htm

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

1. Too late for that ol' "Freedom of the press" thing to kick in?

Maybe they can write an editorial about it.

[C_U_L8R]

2. The press needs to realize

they better stand up to
these fascist republican pigs
or they are out of business

[DIKB]

3. Fascism rears it's ugly head

For the corporate press who bent over for this admin's sick twisted agenda, I can only think that they brought it upon themselves. It's sad that the rest of us must now suffer.

[Texacrat]

4. Typical Republican

n/t

[daleo]

5. Freedom of the press

It's more than just printing cartoons that mock Muslims.