The Committee to Protect Bloggers has covered the trials and tribulations of John “Wes” Osburn before, when he was denied entry to Canada to cover protests outside the Olympics. In this interview with Submedia.tv, Wes talks about the circumstances of his arrest while filming protests after the Oscar Grant killing verdict, and his time in jail. Caution: Strong language. Read the rest of this entry…

Wikileaks founder Julian Asange

The Daily Beast reports: “Anxious that Wikileaks may be on the verge of publishing a batch of secret State Department cables, investigators are desperately searching for founder Julian Assange. Philip Shenon reports. Plus, Daniel Ellsberg tells The Daily Beast: “Assange is in Some Danger.”

Wikileaks has turned out to be The Test Case when it comes to whether the world Wide Web trumps any single national government’s attempts to halt the flow of information.

Julian Assange’s case highlights the fact that while activism may have gone digital, people are still human and vulnerable, especially when consolidating this kind of content down to a single person. On the one hand, Assange may want to take the “publish or perish” axiom literally. Should he throw all these alleged documents online ASAP, his personal safety risk would likely drop as the U.S. government shifts into damage control mode. On the other hand, you can’t get much better hype than this type of Tom Clancy prose in a news article. Read the rest of this entry…

On April 30th, 2010 in Brayshaw v. City of Tallahassee and State Of Florida Honorable Judge Smoak ruled that citizens have a constitutional right to publish police officer’s personal information on public websites that is obtained and re-published from public sources. It has been hailed by Wired Magazine as the ‘Dumbest Case Ever.’

This Ruling came after Officer Annette Garrett of the Tallahassee Police Department had Rob Brayshaw as an American citizen arrested for publishing her name, address and phone number on the Ratemycop.com website. Read the rest of this entry…

The Fourth Annual Anarchist Film Festival is being held on Friday April 16th, 2010 in New York City. This year’s festival is being held to honor the life and work of Brad Will, a film-maker and movement activist allegedly assassinated by the Mexican government in Oaxaca on October 27th, 2006, as he was filming a popular uprising.

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What is your government doing to people behind this fence? Your tax dollars are helping keep you in the dark about it. (Press TV photo)

The U.S. has blocked the release of photos showing clear evidence that the United States is responsible for torture in Iraq and Afghanistan. We think someone with access to the photos should simply leak them on the web, saving tax payers a load of cash and letting people know just what it is our twin occupations are really about. We are calling on anyone who has access to the images to leak them and anyone else to copy this message and post it in order to increase the chance of it reaching anyone who might have access. Read the rest of this entry…

Jess Zimmerman is a student at Butler University in Indianapolis who has been attacked by the university administration over a series of  anonymous blog posts he wrote critical of university policies. It is the first case in the U.S. of a university taking a student to court over online free speech. Here we hear from Jess on the status of the case. — CPB editor

From where I sit as a college student who was running an anonymous blog, free speech is very much at risk!¬† Indeed, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, I‚Äôve become part of the first lawsuit in the nation in which a university has sued over on-line speech.¬† What did I do that was so terrible:¬† I criticized the actions of some administrators at the university I attend ‚Äì Butler University in Indianapolis!¬† Yup, that‚Äôs it.¬† And those folks were so incredibly thin-skinned that they filed a lawsuit in Marion County Superior Court claiming harassment, defamation, libel and threatening behavior. Read the rest of this entry…

The argument in support of expanding the United States’ proposed federal shield law has been made so often, and with such clarity, that it is not worth again recounting.  The proposed federal shield law, or Free Flow of Information Act of 2009, seeks to protect journalists from revealing the identity of their confidential sources.  In late September, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) amended the Senate’s version of the bill (S448) to exclude any protection for individuals who do not receive a paycheck for their reporting.

Beneath this legislative change looms a worrisome, and I think probable, consequence:¬† If citizen journalists and bloggers are not encompassed within the current shield law, I sincerely doubt they ever obtain legal protection to keep confidential sources.¬†¬† In today‚Äôs on-line world, volunteer reporters, citizen journalists, and bloggers are sketching the first draft of history, one town at a time.¬† Electronic journalists are covering stories that newspapers have left for greener pastures,¬† and accordingly, have a need to keep anonymous sources. Read the rest of this entry…