Welcome to the Citizen Media Law Brief, a monthly newsletter highlighting recent blog posts, media law news, legal threat entries, and other new content on the Citizen Media Law Project's website, as well as upcoming events and other announcements. You are receiving this email because you have expressed interest in the CMLP or registered on our site, www.citmedialaw.org. If you do not wish to receive this newsletter, you can unsubscribe by following the link at the bottom of this email or by going to http://www.citmedialaw.org/newsletter/subscriptions.

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News from the Citizen Media Law Project...

The staff of the CMLP would like to invite you all to attend (either virtually or physically) our Berkman Tuesday Luncheon on December 13th, where we will celebrate the two-year anniversary of our Online Media Legal Network. The OMLN – a nation-wide network of about 230 attorneys, specializing in media law, intellectual property, and business formation – has now helped over 160 independent digital media and online journalism clients. This luncheon gives us a chance to talk about our experiences with the network, the issues that we have seen, and our plans for future growth. We are excited to share some of the data we have accumulated while running the OMLN, including information regarding the geographical location of our clients and attorneys, the types of matters we see come to us, and the chronology of our network's growth.

If you are in the greater Boston area, you can attend in person at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, 23 Everett Street, Second Floor, Cambridge, MA. (Lunch is provided, but please RSVP here.) If you live away from Boston you can tune in during the webcast here. The luncheon is on December 13th, at 12:30PM EST.Speaking of the OMLN, if you are an attorney with experience in media law, intellectual property, and business issues for start- up ventures, we want you to join the OMLN! Please consider applying to join.

The OMLN is certainly the star of this month, but the hard work of the CMLP doesn't stop there! Jeff, Arthur, and Andy, with assistance from our wonderful interns Lauren Campbell and John Sharkey, are all busy at work on a series of research projects exploring emerging issues in online journalism. Our research includes a guide to reporting from mass gatherings, a study of First Amendment litigation in the Internet age, and an analysis of IRS treatment of applications for nonprofit status from journalism organizations. Lauren and John are leaving us shortly to take their exams, but both will be back in the spring to continue their excellent work. We look forward to sharing the fruits of these projects soon.

On behalf of all of us at the CMLP, we wish you the best of the holiday season, and a very happy new year. See you in 2012!

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The latest from the Citizen Media Law Project blog...

Victoria Ekstrand examines the tent, and its expressive value to the Occupy protests.
Is the 'Occupy' Protest Tent This Era's Burning Flag?

Eric Robinson reviews the technophobic rules regarding use of electronic devices in D.C. Superior Court.
D.C. Courts Fight the Future in New Rule Limiting Electronic-Device Use in Courthouse

Justin Silverman shows what happens when a guy sitting next to a couple midst breakup at a Burger King gives the play-by-play on Twitter.
Live Tweeting from the ‘Restaurant of Broken Dreams’

Noah Hampson asks the challenging questions about use of speech to justify prosecutions for material support of terrorism.
Tarek Mehanna and the Freedom for the Thought That We Hate

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Threats recently added to the CMLP database or updated...

Obsidian Finance Group v. Cox
Updated December 7, 2011

Shawnee Mission East High School v. Sullivan
Posted December 5, 2011

United States v. Puerto 80 Projects, S.L.U.
Posted December 5, 2011

Ingraham v. Gray
Posted December 5, 2011

Pan Am Systems v. Hardenberg
Posted December 5, 2011

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Other media law news and commentary...

Principal Spikes Football Cartoon from N.M. Newspaper
Student Press Law Center - Fri. 12/2/11

U.S. Judge Orders Hundreds of Sites "De-Indexed" from Google, Facebook
Ars Technica - Wed. 11/30/11

Will the IRS Derail Nonprofit Journalism?
Columbia Journalism Review - Mon. 11/21/11

Free Speech is Only as Strong as the Weakest Link
Electronic Frontier Foundation - Mon. 11/21/11

Notes on the NYPD Press Credentialing Process, from the (Ineligible) Editor-in-Chief of the New York Observer
New York Observer - Fri. 11/18/11

Twitter Ordered to Yield Data in Wikileaks Case
The New York Times - Thurs. 11/10/11

Wired Releases Images via Creative Commons, But Reopens a Debate on What "Noncommercial" Means
Nieman Journalism Lab - Tues. 11/08/11

Feds Drop Plan to Lie in Public-Record Act Requests
Wired - Thurs. 11/03/11

Court Says Recording Officer Was Not Illegal
The Register-Guard - Wed. 11/02/11

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The full(er) Brief...

"Is it possible that the tent is the new burning flag? While today’s Occupy tents don’t obviously carry the same symbolic or historical meaning as the American flag, it’s a question I’ve been thinking about since it was posed recently by Dr. Cathy L. Packer, faculty director of the UNC Center for Media Law and Policy at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. . . . Legal commentators point out that both large and small encampments of the Occupy movement have been shut down by municipalities on the basis of legal precedent set by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1984 in Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence. The Court in that case ruled that protesters against homelessness did not have the right to camp overnight in Lafayette Park and on the National Mall. And, of course, there are local precedents and customs that matter in such instances. But does a case more than 25 years old apply now and under the circumstances the country finds itself? How exactly do we define reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions at a time of small but nationwide protests in towns that haven’t faced these challenges in a long time? "
Victoria Ekstrand, Is the 'Occupy' Protest Tent This Era's Burning Flag?

"[The new D.C. Superior Court rules regarding use of electronic devices] create a class system for electronic devices: the haves and have-nots. And, as I've written before, that's a problem. But there's an even bigger issue with the new rules. After creating the class system for who can and cannot have and use devices, the order then limits what the 'haves' can use these devices for. . . . From the language of the order, it seems that the only permissible use is obtaining information already stored on an electronic device. The prohibition against 'transmissions' would presumably keep users from accessing anything via the Internet, or via e-mail. Violators will risk being removed from the courthouse, as well as criminal and civil fines for contempt. With more people relying on cloud computing to store e-mail, calendars, and documents, this rule is archaic before it even goes into effect. Or, more likely, those authorized to use such devices will use them to access this material anyway, since it will be difficult, if not impossible, to know where the information is stored: on the device or elsewhere."
Eric Robinson, D.C. Courts Fight the Future in New Rule Limiting Electronic-Device Use in Courthouse

"When web developer Andy Boyle overheard a couple discussing their marital woes in a Burger King in Boston on Nov. 7, he immediately recognized the entertainment value and began tweeting a play-by-play. . . . While tweeting the anonymous conversations of others is not uncommon . . . , Boyle added to his narrative a photo of the couple and instantly sparked a much- needed conversation on privacy, ethics, and online etiquette, now known as #BurgerKingBreakup. . . . [The event] poses interesting questions about how social norms will change — or how they have already changed — due to the unprecedented ease of publishing seemingly private affairs. Will we become a world of Andy Boyles or will we demand the same level of anonymity that existed prior to online media and smartphones? Or, as some believe, are we now creating new social boundaries that recognize the ability to publicize while discouraging the live broadcast of daily trials experienced by us all?"
Justin Silverman, Live Tweeting from the ‘Restaurant of Broken Dreams’

"The bulk of the seven-count indictment [filed against Tarek Mehanna] is filled with allegations that Mehanna's speech amounted to material support of terrorists in violation of federal law. . . . In First Amendment jurisprudence, there is a finite . . . list of categories of unprotected speech . . . . Relevant to the Mehanna case, the Supreme Court has ruled that speech that incites others to unlawful action [is] unprotected. As I see it, all of the speech at issue in the Mehanna case is neither incitement nor a "true threat." In Mehanna's case, few examples from the indictment can fairly be considered incitement to imminent lawless action."
Noah Hampson, Tarek Mehanna and the Freedom for the Thought That We Hate

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