The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco has denied a request for a rehearing from a freelance video journalist and blogger who has been jailed for three months for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury investigation of a violent anticapitalist protest, says the New York Times. The decision means that Josh Wolf could be kept in jail until July, when the term of the grand jury expires, said his attorney, Martin Garbus. If that happens, Wolf, who has served 88 days, will be the longest-incarcerated journalist in recent American history, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Vanessa Leggett, a freelance journalist from Houston, served 168 days in 2001 and 2002 for refusing to disclose information about a murder case.
Federal prosecutors want Wolf, 24, to testify about a July 2005 protest timed to correspond with a Group of Eight conference of world economic leaders in Scotland. Wolf videotaped the protest, following anarchists who clashed with police officers. An officer was injured and some property was damaged when a smoke bomb or a firework was put under a police car. Prosecutors asked Wolf to testify and turn over all of his video, but he refused, to protect the identities of those on the tape.
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/17/us/17blogger.html?_r=1&ref=media&oref=slogin