{"id":10771,"date":"2015-08-05T07:07:41","date_gmt":"2015-08-05T12:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10771"},"modified":"2015-08-05T07:07:41","modified_gmt":"2015-08-05T12:07:41","slug":"reporter-wins-fifth-amendment-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=10771","title":{"rendered":"Reporter Wins Fifth Amendment Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/2015\/08\/03\/reporter-wins-fifth-amendment-case\/\" target=\"_blank\">Reporter Wins Fifth Amendment Case<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"entry-meta\"><strong>The U.S. government\u2019s recurring threats to prosecute journalists who receive classified documents may have created an avenue for some reporters to evade testimony at least in civil cases \u2013 by asserting a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, says Marcy Wheeler.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<hr \/>\n<p>An appellate decision on the\u00a0long-running dispute between a former prosecutor and the Department of Justice\u00a0may provide a new way for journalists to protect their government sources. The decision came as a result of former prosecutor Richard Convertino\u2019s effort to sue\u00a0DOJ for Privacy Act violations tied to a 2004 leak to\u00a0<em>Detroit Free Press\u00a0<\/em>reporter David Ashenfelter, who<a href=\"http:\/\/www.newsroomlawblog.com\/uploads\/file\/ashenfelter%20article%202004.pdf\"><u>reported<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that Convertino was under investigation by DOJ\u2019s Office of Professional Responsibility for misconduct on a terrorism trial.<\/p>\n<p>There are no heroes in the underlying suit. Convertino claims DOJ investigated him not for prosecutorial misconduct, but instead to retaliate for criticism of their conduct under the \u201cwar on terror\u201d and testimony provided under subpoena to Congress. \u2026 But Convertino\u2019s alleged conduct \u2014 withholding evidence from defense attorneys \u2014 was also inexcusable.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"image-anchor\" href=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/billofrights.jpg?55ac53\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-15618\" src=\"http:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/billofrights.jpg?55ac53\" alt=\"The first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights.\" width=\"250\" height=\"283\" data-lazy-loaded=\"true\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The dispute has sucked Ashenfelter up in a long-running fight over whether he should have to testify about his sources. He first tried to refuse by invoking reporter\u2019s privilege, which a judge rejected. But when, in 2008, Convertino tried to depose the reporter, Ashenfelter\u00a0invoked the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination in response to each question.<\/p>\n<p>To defend doing so, Ashenfelter\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/exposefacts.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/090121-Memo-on-Fifth.pdf\"><u>pointed to<\/u><\/a>\u00a0Convertino\u2019s own claims that he had conspired with criminals at DOJ, as well as to a series of cases (including those under the Espionage Act) and public statements suggesting DOJ\u00a0<em>might<\/em>\u00a0prosecute someone for using documents illegally obtained from the government to do reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Reporter Wins Fifth Amendment Case The U.S. government\u2019s recurring threats to prosecute journalists who receive classified documents may have created an avenue for some reporters to evade testimony at least in civil cases \u2013 by asserting a Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, says Marcy Wheeler. An appellate decision on the\u00a0long-running dispute between a former prosecutor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[6963,7882,462,938,834,838,843],"class_list":["post-10771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-liberty","tag-consortium-news","tag-fifth-amendment","tag-journalism","tag-press-freedom","tag-us","tag-us-constitution","tag-us-government"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10772,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10771\/revisions\/10772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}