I don’t typically cross over my work with this blog, but I wanted to share this press release regarding an amicus brief I drafted with the CMLP and RCFP. I’ve added a few links to ease navigation.
Cambridge, MA – June 23, 2009 – The Citizen Media Law Project (CMLP), assisted by Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic, urged the New Hampshire Supreme Court to defend the First Amendment rights of a website that covers mortgage industry news.
The CMLP, in conjunction with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) and with the assistance of local counsel Paul Apple of Drummond Woodsum & MacMahon in Portsmouth, NH, submitted an amicus curiae brief (PDF) in the case of The Mortgage Specialists, Inc. v. Implode-Explode Heavy Industries, Inc. The case involves Implode-Explode Heavy Industries, Inc., which runs a mortgage industry website that posted a New Hampshire Banking Department document, obtained from an anonymous source. That document described certain business practices of the Mortgage Specialists, Inc., a lending company under investigation in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. After the mortgage company discovered the disclosure, it sued the website, demanding that the document be removed and that the anonymous source be identified. The Rockingham County Superior Court granted these requests (PDF), and the case is presently on appeal.
In their brief, the amici focused on a series of cases in which courts permitted the publication of confidential or controversial documents – from the U.S. Supreme Court in the famed Pentagon Papers case through recent cases involving recorded cell phone conversations and videos of police searches posted online. Amici also provided extensive caselaw support for the proposition that anonymous news sources should be protected.
The amici urged the New Hampshire Supreme Court to carefully consider the harm the Superior Court’s ruling would have on freedom of the press, noting in their brief that the publication of this document “is not unlawful in New Hampshire, and, even if it were, would nevertheless be fully protected speech under the First Amendment.” In addition, amici asked the Supreme Court to apply New Hampshire’s qualified reporter’s privilege to protect the identity of its source, noting “[i]t is the function of an organization, not the medium of publication, which defines it as worthy of a journalist’s privilege.”
The CMLP was represented on the brief by the Cyberlaw Clinic. The CMLP and the Cyberlaw Clinic are both based at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society, an organization dedicated to studying the development of cyberspace. Andy Sellars, a Cyberlaw Clinic summer intern and student at The George Washington University Law School in Washington, DC, drafted the brief alongside CMLP Assistant Director Sam Bayard, Cyberlaw Clinical Fellow Christopher Bavitz, and RCFP Legal Fellow Samantha Fredrickson.
“It was a great privilege to work with the CMLP and RCFP on this important issue,” Sellars said. “We hope the New Hampshire Supreme Court will carefully weigh the First Amendment rights at stake in this case.”
For more, see the CMLP and RCFP press releases on the subject, as well as Sam Bayard’s blog post from April.
[...] publish hacked documents here. The analysis here draws on many of the same cases Sam and I used in an amicus brief sent by CMLP and the Cyberlaw Clinic to the Supreme Court of New Hampshire about a month [...]
Pingback by Twitter Security Breach « Andy on the Road — 17 July 2009 @ 8:40 am |
[...] We focused on the First Amendment issues at stake case, and there were many: the lower court’s injunction worked a prior restraint on speech, it punished the disclosure of information that did not violate New Hampshire law – and even if it had, federal precedent would prohibit applying that punishment to these facts – and it ordered the disclosure of the identity of an anonymous source, in violation of both U.S. and New Hampshire laws and case precedents. (Our press release following our filing is here.) [...]
Pingback by NH Supreme Court hears online journalism case « Andy on the Road — 7 November 2009 @ 11:36 am |