The Freedom of the Press Foundation reports
Today, fourteen Pulitzer Prize winners have issued statements in support of journalist James Risen and in protest of the Justice Department's attempt to force Risen to testify against his sources. Risen has vowed to go to jail rather than give up his source, but the Justice Department has steadfastly refused to drop its pursuit. On Thursday, many of the major US press freedom organizations will hold a press conference in Washington DC and deliver a petition with over 100,000 signatures to the Justice Department, calling on them to do the same.
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https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/03/charges-against-journalist-tim-burke-are-a-hack-job/
Caitlin Vogus is the deputy director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation and a First Amendment lawyer. Jennifer Stisa Granick is the surveillance and cybersecurity counsel with the ACLU's Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. The opinions in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of Ars Technica.
Imagine a journalist finds a folder on a park bench, opens it, and sees a telephone number inside. She dials the number. A famous rapper answers and spews a racist rant. If no one gave her permission to open the folder and the rapper's telephone number was unlisted, should the reporter go to jail for publishing what she heard?
If that sounds ridiculous, it's because it is. And yet, add in a computer and the Internet, and that's basically what a newly unsealed federal indictment accuses Florida journalist Tim Burke of doing when he found and disseminated outtakes of Tucker Carlson's Fox News interview with Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, going on the first of many antisemitic diatribes.
[...]
According to Burke, the video of Carlson's interview with Ye was streamed via a publicly available, unencrypted URL that anyone could access by typing the address into your browser. Those URLs were not listed in any search engine, but Burke says that a source pointed him to a website on the Internet Archive where a radio station had posted "demo credentials" that gave access to a page where the URLs were listed.The credentials were for a webpage created by LiveU, a company that provides video streaming services to broadcasters. Using the demo username and password, Burke logged into the website, and, Burke's lawyer claims, the list of URLs for video streams automatically downloaded to his computer.
And that, the government says, is a crime. It charges Burke with violating the CFAA's prohibition on intentionally accessing a computer "without authorization" because he accessed the LiveU website and URLs without having been authorized by Fox or LiveU. In other words, because Burke didn't ask Fox or LiveU for permission to use the demo account or view the URLs, the indictment alleges, he acted without authorization.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday August 15 2014, @01:00AM
based on the summary I have no idea who this guy is or why he is in the new.
To the editors; A good summary doesn't just copy/paste but explains who, what, where and why for those of use who have trouble remembering names or who may not read CNN everyday.
Now I'm off to read the linked article to find out why the DOJ has a beef with this Risen guy.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday August 15 2014, @02:38AM
I agree. Is it the exposure of the warrantless wiretapping that they're trying to get sources for?
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday August 15 2014, @02:40AM
If it is, it's quite interesting as the NSA broke the law, and he may go to jail for it. That doesn't seem right.
(Score: 5, Informative) by stormwyrm on Friday August 15 2014, @03:00AM
Apparently he's a journalist who published some of the earlier stories about the NSA's unconstitutional activities a few years before Edward Snowden. He wrote about the Bush-era warrantless wiretapping, and the Stellar Wind NSA surveillance program, which Snowden later revealed more details on. He's also written a book called State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration [wikipedia.org]. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have been pressuring him to reveal the sources behind that book, and now it looks like they're trying to get him to testify against one of his sources that they managed to catch, Jeffrey Alexander Sterling [wikipedia.org], a former CIA agent, who leaked some of the information that appeared in State of War. Of course, James Risen seems all poised to give the government the metaphorical middle finger, risking contempt of court and imprisonment as a result.
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday August 15 2014, @04:00AM
The pursuit of this journalist makes it obvious that any illusions of a fair trial for a certain citizen in Russia is bullshit.
Btw, thanks for the informative comment!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @03:27AM
It's a ploy to get us to RTFA and it worked!
(Score: 2) by PinkyGigglebrain on Friday August 15 2014, @05:49AM
Read the article, signed the petition.
I'll be watching this one, it might be time to change my sig to
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."-John F. Kennedy
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 1) by Paradise Pete on Saturday August 16 2014, @10:13AM
We look forward to your summary.
(Score: 1) by Pooch on Friday August 15 2014, @01:12AM
"On Thursday, many of the major US press freedom organizations will hold a press conference in Washington DC and deliver a petition with over 100,000 signatures to the Justice Department, calling on them to do the same."
so the justice department has been petitioned by 100,000 to hold a press conference? that's what the sentence says.
(Score: 1) by Paradise Pete on Saturday August 16 2014, @10:18AM
Maybe it's calling on the justice department to deliver a petition.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jcross on Friday August 15 2014, @01:37AM
My first thought when I saw this was that if the Justice Dept got their way, either by getting this guy to testify or sending him to jail, it might seem to them like a win in that one case, but would have the unintended consequence of causing fewer people to be willing to talk to the press. But then I realized that this chilling effect might not be an unintended consequence at all. I mean, they're all about the free flow of information... from us to them.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Friday August 15 2014, @02:00AM
"but would have the unintended consequence of causing fewer people to be willing to talk to the press. But then I realized that this chilling effect might not be an unintended consequence at all."
Exactly. This is what they want. You need to digest sanitized, prepared and more importantly - allowed news.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 15 2014, @04:01AM
Is all good and everything, but it's taken way too far. Especially when the press takes sides instead of reporting the facts. I laugh at some of the crap they say. It's about as bad as the national enquirer, Yellow Journalism at its best.