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ASNE's effort in protecting freedom of press


While 
the letter ASNE and 37 other media organizations and companies sent to the White House in protest of reduced photo and video access to the White House has garnered a significant amount of attention, ASNE continues to be active on other free press issues.  This month we joined two amicus briefs designed to protect the rights of reporters throughout the country. 

While 
the letter ASNE and 37 other media organizations and companies sent to the White House in protest of reduced photo and video access to the White House has garnered a significant amount of attention, ASNE continues to be active on other free press issues.  This month we joined two amicus briefs designed to protect the rights of reporters throughout the country. 

The first brief was filed in Mann v. National Review, et al. and explains why the District of Columbia's relatively new "Anti-SLAPP" law should be immediately appealable if the defendant in a defamation case unsuccessfully tries to invoke the law. 

 

Three federal Courts of Appeal (the 1st Circuit, 5th Circuit and 9th Circuit) have recognized that the "collateral appeal" doctrine, which permits appeal of "interlocutory" orders, means that decisions under Anti-SLAPP laws of Maine, Louisiana and California, respectively, are immediately appealable. 

 

Two State Supreme Courts -- Maine and Massachusetts -- have specifically held that their states' Anti-SLAPP laws provide a right of immediate appeal, even though the language doesn't explicitly say so. In fact, in Massachusetts, the court found that a defendant must immediately appeal the interlocutory order or forfeit the right to appeal that order entirely. Maine's Supreme Court held, like the others, that the point of the Anti-SLAPP is to avoid prolonged litigation time and expense; this immediate appeal is consistent with that goal. The D.C. Anti-SLAPP law has a similar goal of avoiding litigation over achieving the result. 

 

ASNE joined the case because the District's law is new so we are, in effect, editing the Anti-SLAPP law's impact via the court system. Second, because other states are addressing the same issue, this case could have influence there. Finally, we continue to seek a federal Anti-SLAPP law, so this ruling could have an impact on how that law is ultimately written and applied. We believe the case is actually disproportionally important vis-à-vis the individual participants and result.

 

The second brief is yet another challenge to the government's wide-ranging surveillance programs. We entered this case currently before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles v. National Security Agency, to explain the effect this surveillance program has on reporters. 

 

Our brief explains that, while the government has been willing to negotiate with the media when individual cases involving leak investigations and issuance of subpoenas (and only then when we make a big deal about it, and they already look bad), their "cooperation" is moot when there exists total surveillance of all telephone calls. 

 

The brief also recounts the many "history-altering" stories that relied on confidential communications between journalists and sources, including Watergate, the illegal NSA wiretapping programming monitoring phone calls and email messages involving suspected terrorist operatives without federal court approval, enhanced interrogation activities, the CIA "black site" prisons, among others. The brief explains how the NSA surveillance program threatens the future of these types of ground-breaking stories by providing anecdotal evidence of the chilling of sources. 


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