Press, Press, Pull

Last week California Judge, James Kleinberg ruled that three Apple Website bloggers must reveal sources that provided them with Apple trade secrets. These bloggers published information on their Web sites that had been leaked to them by Apple employees. Apple demanded that the three bloggers, ThinkSecret, AppleInsider, and PowerPage, provide the names of the sources of the stolen information. The case attracted national attention when the sites representatives claimed to be “journalists” and were protected by Federal and California law from disclosing their source. The journalist protection privilege in California is known as the “shield law”. The judge did not agree. He ruled that the subpoenas lodged by Apple against the bloggers were legitimate. According to The Blog Herald many observers are judging Apples actions as an attack on blogging, an assumption that has troubled Apple. The judge noted that what constitutes a journalist is “murky” in the online age, but refused to address whether Web site writers, or bloggers are journalist. Kleinberg cleverly avoided the issue. The judge ruled that protecting Apple’s trade secrets out weighed the publics right to information about Apple, as well as the bloggers right to publish it. Since the defendant’s claims would have been rejected even if they were journalist the judge was silent on whether a blogger is a journalist with the same protection rights. This is probably only the first of many cases we will see that will seek to define the responsibilities and standing of blogging and bloggers. I guess I'll have to wait a while for that Pulitzer Prize.