Shield Laws

Is There a Mini Constitution in Sky Mall? How the TSA Forgets Citizens' Rights

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In recent years, the American public seems to have fallen under the impression that providers and regulators of airline travel have extra-legal powers. These fictional powers typically mean that passengers can be treated like cattle.

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Senate Puts Bloggers Back in the Federal Shield Bill

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On Friday, Senators Arlen Specter (D-PA) and Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) released a revised version of the proposed federal shield bill (S. 448), which expands the bill's coverage to bloggers and other amateur journalists publishing on the Internet.

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Senate Cuts Citizen Bloggers From Federal Shield Bill

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For citizen journalists, the federal shield law front was looking good for a while.  Although the House of Representatives version of the bill, passed in April, only offered a shield to professional bloggers, the Senate version didn't differentiate between the pros and the amateurs.  So there was hope that amateur journalists might actually, eventually, get its protection.

No longer though.

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New Jersey Court Says Blogger Shellee Hale Not Protected By Shield Law

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In a June 30 decision, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Louis Locascio ruled that Shellee Hale, a blogger, private investigator, and "life coach," could not invoke New Jersey's journalist shield law to protect the identity of her sources in connection with postings she

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News Websites in Texas and Kentucky Invoke Shield Laws for Online Commenters

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This week brings word of two new cases testing whether state shield laws apply to user comments posted on news websites.  In Texas, a Taylor County District Court judge ruled that the Abilene Reporter-News may refrain from disclosing the identities of commenters who posted comments to articles about a murder victim and the teenager charged in connection with his death.

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Berkman's Cyberlaw Clinic Submits Amicus Brief in Case Involving Prior Restraint and Reporter's Privilege

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Today, Harvard Law School's Cyberlaw Clinic submitted an amicus curiae brief urging the New Hampshire Supreme Court to defend the First Amendment rights of a website that covers news about the mortgage industry.

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NY Legislature Proactively Considering Whether Shield Law Applies to Bloggers? How Novel!

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As anyone who's been faithfully reading the CMLP blog knows, the law hasn't been particularly good at dealing with the intersection of media shield laws and bloggers.  Although there seems to be a modest trend towards application of shield laws to anonymous commenters on news stories, the judiciary's application of shield laws to bloggers has been pretty

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