Journalist Refuses to Hand Over Video Footage

A federal grand jury investigating the alleged attempted burning of a police car at a July 8, 2005   protest in San Francisco’s Mission district issued the subpoena for Wolf’s footage.  

Wolf refused to comply with the U.S. Attorney’s  order to hand over his videotape and testify in front of the grand jury.  As a journalist, Wolf asserts, he has a right to withhold unpublished material and his belief is backed up by state law.  

California’s shield law protects journalists’ unpublished material, as well as confidential sources, from any compelled disclosure by judicial processes.

Wolf refused to hand over his video footage and was ordered in contempt of court. As a result, he spent a month in jail.  He was released on bail on August 31, 2006. Just weeks later, on September 19, a three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Wolf's bail revoked unless he hands over the his video footage.

The ACLU-NC contests the government’s argument that a journalist cannot invoke a First Amendment privilege when presented with a grand jury subpoena.

A federal prosecutor and the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) obtained a federal grand jury subpoena, thereby circumventing state protections of journalists and their materials.

The ACLU-NC brief describes the JTTF’s investigation of the demonstration, which began only three days after the protest, as part of “a disturbing pattern…that strongly suggests that JTTFs have been used as a means of investigating protestors in general, and anti-war protestors in particular. This goes far beyond their mandate to investigate potential terrorism.”

Wolf has argued that the videotape in question has no more than a tenuous connection to any legitimate federal interest.  It did not record the purported arson of the police car, any other attempted arson, or any other illegal act.

Thomas R. Burke and Rochelle L. Wilcox from the law firm of Davis, Wright, Tremaine LLP are cooperating attorneys on this case.