Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
San Francisco (dpa) - A freelance journalist has been sent to jail after refusing to turn over unaired videotapes of a 2005 anarchist demonstration in which protesters clashed with police, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Wednesday.
Josh Wolf, 24, could spend a year in federal prison after US District Judge William Alsup rejected Wolf's claim that a reporter has a right to withhold unpublished material, which was demanded by a grand jury.
"Every person, from the president of the United States down to you and me, has to give information to the grand jury if the grand jury wants it," Alsup said.
Wolf, who describes himself on his Web site as an activist and anarchist, claims that prosecutors demanded the footage of the July 8, 2005 demonstration in order to monitor the political activities of the anarchist groups.
But Alsup backed prosecutors' claims that the unreleased footage could provide information about an attempt to set fire to a police car and had nothing to do with protecting a journalist's confidential sources.
"There's no Deep Throat out there trying to protect his identity," the judge said, referring to the legendary confidential source who revealed the Watergate scandal, for which former president Richard Nixon's resigned.
Copyright 2006 dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH
