Source Protection

A federal judge in Santa Ana declined Thursday to order a reporter to reveal the names of federal officials who leaked information to him for a 2006 story about a grand jury investigation into a scheme to send sensitive military technology to China, the Los Angeles Times has reported. The details: Washington Times reporter Bill Gertz was subpoenaed to testify in federal court by US District Judge...

California Judge Cormac Carney has ordered William Gertz, a national security reporter for the Washington Times, to appear in court for open-ended questioning on his reporting techniques. The order comes regarding Gertz's article discussing supposed espionage attempts by China in the United States. "Confidentiality of sources is essential to the news-gathering process. The judge's decision to have...

Swedish Parliament passed Wednesday evening a controversial bill allowing the government to monitor all SMS, email and other data traffic crossing Swedish borders with 143 in favour, 138 opposed and one parliamentarian abstaining. Faced with powerful criticism from the opposition, international experts, and from within its own ranks, the government sent the bill back to a parliamentary committee...

A journalist won a legal test case over the confidentiality of reporters' contacts after judges ruled against a court order seeking all his notes for a biography of a former Islamist radical. The order had required London reporter Shiv Malik to give police all his notes and source material for a book he was writing on Hassan Butt, a British-born Muslim who spent 10 years inside radical Islamist...

Traditional authorities in Swaziland continue to harass and intimidate the media, particularly in instances when the Swazi monarchy faces criticism, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA). On June 14, the traditional governor, Jim Gama, who is regarded as the traditional prime minister, launched a scathing attack on the print media and threatened journalists for what he claimed...

An appeals court in Canada has overturned a lower court's 2004 contempt ruling against a journalist who would not reveal his source. In the ruling issued Monday in Toronto, the three-judge panel of the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms applies to journalist-informant confidentiality and, as a result, the contempt charge and fine against Hamilton Spectator...

A former USA Today reporter who was ordered to pay hefty fines starting at midnight Tuesday for refusing to name confidential sources for a story, has been granted a stay, Agence France-Presse (AFP) has reported quoting court sources. "It is ordered that the motion for a stay pending appeal be granted," a clerk at a US court of appeals in Washington told AFP, reading from the order. "Appellant has...

A Canadian court has overturned a landmark 2004 court ruling that recognised journalists have a broad right to protect confidential sources, even in the context of police investigations. The Ontario Court of Appeal's decision last week resurrects a search warrant giving the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) the authority to seize a document from a National Post reporter that went to the heart

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed concern at a crackdown against the media which criticised the Cameroon government following an outbreak of rioting in Douala in the southwest part of the country. As the communications minister called on newspapers to be “responsible”, the unrest has left the privately-owned press in crisis after security forces raided the studios of Magic FM radio...

The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), the European group of the IFJ, has called for better protection of sources in France after the latest case against a journalist who has refused to reveal a confidential source. “It is urgent that a protection of sources law is passed in France”, said EFJ Chair Arne König. “Unfortunately we are not surprised by this event, which happened the day before...