{"id":33839,"date":"2009-10-27T19:30:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-27T23:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/articles\/20091020\/1226376604.shtml"},"modified":"2009-10-27T19:30:00","modified_gmt":"2009-10-27T23:30:00","slug":"shield-law-what-shield-law-police-just-get-reporters-phone-records","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/33839","title":{"rendered":"Shield Law? What Shield Law? Police Just Get Reporter&#8217;s Phone Records"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While there are still debates over proposals for a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.techdirt.com\/articles\/20091001\/1819526398.shtml\">federal shield law<\/a> to protect journalists from having to reveal sources, California already has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thefirstamendment.org\/shieldlaw.html\" >a shield law for journalists<\/a>, but what good does it do if authorities totally ignore it.  It seems that may have happened in the case of TMZ&#8217;s Harvey Levin and the Los Angeles County Sheriff <a href=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/lanow\/2009\/10\/tmzs-harvey-levin-use-of-his-phone-records-in-mel-gibson-case-disgusting.html\" >obtaining Levin&#8217;s phone records<\/a> in trying to track down who leaked information about actor Mel Gibson&#8217;s arrest.  Levin is pointing out that this does, in fact, appear to violate both state and federal law and is apparently working with lawyers over this.  While the Sheriff&#8217;s department says it spoke with a prosecutor and got a judge&#8217;s approval to get the records, it&#8217;s difficult to see how that fits with California&#8217;s shield law.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/articles\/20091020\/1226376604.shtml\">Permalink<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/articles\/20091020\/1226376604.shtml#comments\">Comments<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/techdirt.com\/article.php?sid=20091020\/1226376604&#038;op=sharethis\">Email This Story<\/a><br \/>\n <br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<br clear=\"both\" style=\"clear: both;\"\/><br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/click.phdo?s=d77193d2e0fc22a48d9523679d9eaf9f&#038;p=1\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" style=\"border: 0;\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/ads.pheedo.com\/img.phdo?s=d77193d2e0fc22a48d9523679d9eaf9f&#038;p=1\"\/><\/a><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" height=\"0\" width=\"0\" border=\"0\" style=\"display:none\" src=\"http:\/\/a.rfihub.com\/eus.gif?eui=2225\"\/><\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.techdirt.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?a=tlLe7OORd8k:nn_ix7VmjE4:D7DqB2pKExk\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?i=tlLe7OORd8k:nn_ix7VmjE4:D7DqB2pKExk\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.techdirt.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?a=tlLe7OORd8k:nn_ix7VmjE4:c-S6u7MTCTE\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/techdirt\/feed?d=c-S6u7MTCTE\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/techdirt\/feed\/~4\/tlLe7OORd8k\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While there are still debates over proposals for a federal shield law to protect journalists from having to reveal sources, California already has a shield law for journalists, but what good does it do if authorities totally ignore it. It seems that may have happened in the case of TMZ&#8217;s Harvey Levin and the Los [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33839\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}