Category Archives: Free Josh Wolf

Josh Wolf in jail 193 days while feds chase the perp who popped a tail light on an SFPD cop car

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(Freelance journalist and anarchist Josh Wolf has refused to turn over videotapes of a protest being investigated by a federal grand jury. Online Journalism Review has written about his case; you can read more in Wikipedia. In December I promised to write about his case every Friday until he is freed. Spread the word. – Tom Abate aka MiniMediaGuy).

Two weeks ago I mixed things up a bit by letting my brother, a New Jersey attorney, use this space to argue that Josh Wolf was justly jailed. Last Friday I replied to the effect that he should never have been imprisoned. 

I started thedebate by saying I wouldn’t argue that Josh deserved any special treatment as a journalist. My position is that no citizen should be imprisoned on such flimsy pretext as has he. 

But Cody Molica, a writer and legal researcher living in Santa Rosa, refused to concede the jailed journalist issue. He wrote in to say:

“So Josh Wolf is not a journalist? That’s interesting because the Society of Professional Journalists which is the longest established union of journalists in this country has awarded Wolf the Journalist of the Year Award  . . . Josh Wolf sold this video tape to three of our local television stations for $500 each, i.e. he was not just a spectator but an independent journalist. (he has been doing this for a while)”

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The United States of Guantanamo has jailed Josh Wolf for 186 days for a crime that might occurred

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(Josh Wolf is a freelance journalist and anarchist. He has been jailed for refusing to turn over videotapes of a protest being investigated by a federal grand jury. Online Journalism Review has written about his case; here is a bit more from Wikipedia. On Friday, December 1, 2006, I ran a reminder of his incarceration. I will write about his case every Friday until he is freed. Visit his site and find a way to help. Tom Abate, San Leandro, Ca; aka MiniMediaGuy).

There is a saying that goes: when the law is on your side argue the law; when the facts are on your side argue the facts; when you have neither pound the table.

Last week I published a guest blog from my brother the lawyer who argued the law. Josh Wolf is in the slammer, he wrote, because several judges have upheld a federal prosecutor’s demand that he turn over out takes of a street protest he had videotaped. Those judges hailed from the liberal Ninth Circuit which, he noted with a certain wit, “leans so far to the left it might as well lay down.” He taunted Wolf’s progressive supporters – who may wonder how a street protest in San Francisco has turned into a federal case — by telling them that the precedent for federal intrusion into local affairs stems from some case decided by liberal judges in the past.

“And that’s where we are today,” my brother writes as if conservatives, who’ve spent decades advocating judicial restraint, now feel no obligation to practice what they have preached. 

As for why liberal judges have condoned this federal fishing expedition, let me suggest that, having leaned so far to the left as to lay down, they have fallen asleep on the job — exercising the constitutional oversight needed to prevent zealous prosecutors from turning into bullies.

Let’s look at some facts.

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Day 179 and it’s Brother v Brother over Josh Wolf

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(Josh Wolf is a freelance journalist and anarchist. He has been jailed for refusing to turn over videotapes of a protest being investigated by a federal grand jury. Online Journalism Review has written about his case; here is a bit more from Wikipedia. On Friday, December 1, 2006, I ran a reminder of his incarceration. I will write about his case every Friday until he is freed. Visit his site and find a way to help. Tom Abate, San Leandro, Ca; aka MiniMediaGuy).

One of my brothers, New Jersey attorney James Abate, reads this blog on occasion and has opposed this campaign, arguing in part that Josh Wolf is not a journalist. So last week I offered to concede that point if the feds would just let him go. Alas, the U.S. Attorney in San Francisco did not take the deal. But my ploy did elicit the following guest blog from my brother the attorney. Please read James Abate’s argument below; I will respond next Friday.

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Sorry, my MiniMedia Brother, but no deal! I’m going to explain why Wolf is being treated fairly and as a special bonus, at the end I will explain why he has his progressive friends to thank for being targeted in the first place. I promise, its not what you think.

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Day 172 of Josh Wolf’s unenviable adventure

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(Josh Wolf is a freelance journalist and anarchist. He has been jailed for refusing to turn over videotapes of a protest being investigated by a federal grand jury. Online Journalism Review has written about his case; here is a bit more from Wikipedia. On Friday, December 1, 2006, I ran a reminder of his incarceration. I will write about his case every Friday until he is freed. Visit his site and find a way to help. Tom Abate, San Leandro, Ca; aka MiniMediaGuy).

On Tuesday Josh Wolf spent his 169th day in the slammer, surpassing the previous record for time spent in jail by a U.S. journalist in defiance of a court order. A San Francisco Chronicle story about this milestone suggests the 24-year-old freelancer might be in for a much longer stay. The federal grand jury, whose order Wolf is defying, is already scheduled to stay in session until July and “a prosecutor said in court papers last month that the term could be extended six months.” Wolf could be held as long as the grand jury sits.

What do prosecutors want? 

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Reporters without freedom

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(Josh Wolf is a freelance journalist and anarchist. He has been jailed for refusing to turn over videotapes of a protest being investigated by a federal grand jury. Online Journalism Review has written about his case; here is a bit more from Wikipedia. On Friday, December 1, 2006, I ran a reminder of his incarceration. I will write about his case every Friday until he is freed. Visit his site and find a way to help. Tom Abate, San Leandro, Ca; aka MiniMediaGuy).

Josh Wolf was an absent guest of honor when Reporters Without Borders, the international media rights group based in France, issued its 2007 Report on censorship yesterday at a press conference in Washington, D.C. A statement was read on behalf of his mother, Liz Wolf Spada, who called for his release. Wolf has been in jail for more than 150 for refusing to turn over tapes and testify about an anti-global protest that he videotaped.

The U.S. portion of the report summarized his case thus:

“The 24-year-old Californian had filmed a demonstration at a G8 summit in 2005 during which a police vehicle was attacked and damaged. A federal judge ordered him to hand over his film and when he refused, he was sent to prison for a month in August 2006, then sent back to jail on 18 September by a federal appeal court, which refused to rehear the case on 16 November, meaning he will probably stay there until a grand jury finishes its investigation of the vehicle attack in July 2007.”

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Feds jailing Josh Wolf to get Indymedia?

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(Josh Wolf is a freelance journalist and anarchist. He has been jailed for refusing to turn over videotapes of a protest being investigated by a federal grand jury. Online Journalism Review has written about his case; here is a bit more from Wikipedia; and from his own site. On Friday, December 1, 2006, I ran a reminder of his incarceration. I will write about his case every Friday until he is freed. What will you do? Tom Abate, San Leandro, California; aka MiniMediaGuy).

Last Friday I speculated that the federal government must have better things to do than investigate a street protest in San Francisco, and that their true goal must be to pressure Josh Wolf, an activist who is overtly sympathetic to the protestors he covers, to reveal what he knows about the anti-global, vaguely anarchist protest network that has arisen since the 1999 World Trade Center protests.

A March 27, 2006 article in the Los Angeles Times lends credence to that surmise. LA Times reporter Nicholas Riccardi revealed how the Federal Bureau of Investigation has been investigating domestic protest groups associated with minor acts of political violence — including anarchists and the grassroots media collective Indymedia.

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Josh Wolf imprisoned in probe of anarchists?

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(Josh Wolf is a freelance journalist and anarchist. He has been jailed for refusing to turn over videotapes of a protest being investigated by a federal grand jury. Online Journalism Review has written about his case; here is a bit more from Wikipedia; and from his own site. On Friday, December 1, 2006, I ran a reminder of his incarceration. I will write about his case every Friday until he is freed. What will you do? Tom Abate, San Leandro, California; aka MiniMediaGuy).

I recently got a letter from Josh Wolf. It was handwritten and dated just before Christmas. He was responding to the hardcopy of a blog entry that I had mailed him in December. In his letter he says that although he has been jailed for refusing to bear witness to the burning of a police car –  the police car was never burned; the police report mentions only damage to its lights; and his tapes bear no evidence of arson. So why is he being imprisoned? Wolf writes:

“This investigation is not about investigating a crime but is instead an attempt to gather information and the identities of those engaged in civil dissent in the Bay Area. Just as the FBI sought to catalog communists during the 1950s under the auspices of the Cold War, it is my suspicion that my jailing is part of a broad initiative to identify anarchists and intimidate both journalists and their contacts.”

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