San Francisco free-lancer free on bail pending full appeals-court hearing on whether blogger has journalists' rights

The Society of Professional Journalists voted at its annual meeting in Chicago in August to provide $30,000 in support for the legal defense of Josh Wolf -- the largest such grant the organization has ever given. At the time, Josh was being held in the federal prison in Dublin, Calif., east of San Francisco for contempt of court for refusing to respond to a subpoena to provide his videotape of a street protest in San Francisco in which a police car was burned and two police officers injured. Wolf is a blogger and free-lance journalist and SPJ's defense is based on the notion that bloggers should have the same right to resist government subpoenas of source material as any journalist. On Sept. 1, two judges of a three-judge the U.S. Nine Circuit Court of Appeals panel agreed to release Wolf about a month in prison, ruling that he should not have been denied bail. However, a second three-judge panel, ruling  Sept. 7 on the merits of his case, found against him on the merits. He has now appealed to the full Nine Circuit, allowing him to remain free on bail. Wolf, 23,  is maintaining a personal blog about his plight. Journalist J.D. Lasica provided in April a good summary of the case and its implications at his blog. On Friday, Sept. 15, host Amy Goodman of the weekday news program Democracy Now interviewed Josh as well as San Francisco Chronicle sports reporter Lance Williams -- also facing imprisonment for refusing to reveal the source of his stories and book about professional baseball drug use. To listen to the 14-minute intereview as a streaming download, click on the link below and go to 46 minutes into the podcast:  http://www.archive.org/download/dn2006-0915/dn2006-0915_64kb.m3u