A three-judge appellate panel stated May 26 that bloggers can protect the anonymity of sources, reversing an earlier decision in the case of Apple Computer versus a group of owners of Mac rumor sites.
The earlier decision, made by Judge James Kleinberg of the Santa Clara County Superior Court of California, had been appealed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which, along with co-counsels Thomas Moore III and Richard Wiebe, represented the sites.
A similar case against the site Think Secret is still under deliberation.
The May 26 decision stated that PowerPage.org and AppleInsider are protected under First Amendment rights as well as by California’s own reporters’ shield law.
There currently is no national reporters’ shield law in the United States.
“We can think of no workable test or principle that would distinguish ‘legitimate’ from ‘illegitimate’ news,” the judges wrote in their decision.
“Any attempt by courts to draw such a distinction would imperil a fundamental purpose of the First Amendment, which is to identify the best, most important, and most valuable ideas not by any sociological or economic formula, rule of law, or process of government, but through the rough and tumble competition of the mimetic marketplace.”
In March 2005, Judge James Kleinberg of the Santa Clara County Superior Court stated that the rumor site owners did not have the right to protect their sources.
Read the full story on eWEEK.com: Appeals Court Sides with Mac Rumor Sites
