QUESTION: Legal history re: journalistic protections/status for Indymedia (as entity + individuals)

question / pregunta: 

I need information regarding the history of legal cases where the question of journalistic protections/status for Indymedia as an entity and Indymedia journalists as individuals has been fought out. Cases are relevant in the US and abroad. Particularly relevant in Israel/Palestine. I am interested in all cases where this question has played out, regardless of determination. We are building a case to prevent the IDF from seizing cameras to gather information on activists and people involved in the struggle for a free Palestine. We need info ASAP to try and prevent them from seizing cameras.

Answers


Answer posted by:
jim miller

The major legal databases that large academic libraries have access to: Lexis Academic, Westlaw, and Hein Online appear to have VERY little on actual legal cases regarding Indymedia. Lexis Academic does get 89 hits for the search: indymedia and attack* in "Major World Publications" (News); one as far back at April 14 2001. But a search of federal and state law cases gets nothing for indymedia, and nothing even for: independent news, alternative news, alternative press, or independent reporters. Alternative media gets one irrelevant hit ("alternative media" for supplying legal reports).

But European law search does get 4 hits for the search: Indymedia:

1. Copyright 2006 EUR-Lex, European Communities, Preparatory Acts, November 21, 2003, Report from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council and the European Economic and Social Committee - First Report on the application of Directive 2000/31/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 8 June 2000 on certain legal aspects of information society services, in particular electronic commerce, in the Internal Market (Directive on electronic commerce), July 17, 2006
... Deutsche Bahn v. Indymedia, judgement by Rechtbank ...

2. Copyright 2006 EUR-Lex, European Communities, Parliamentary Questions, 2002 OJ C 229, March 04, 2002, WRITTEN QUESTION E-0546/02 by Ilka Schroder (GUE/NGL) to the Council. Raid by the Netherlands Police on the Vrankrijk Building in Amsterdam., July 17, 2006
... at http://www.indymedia.de/2002/01/ ...

3. Copyright 2007 Commission of the European Communities, EUR-Lex Database: Miscellaneous OJ Documents, December 5, 2007, 2007 OJ C 293, [No Date in Original], List of titles of Written Questions by Members of the European Parliament indicating the number, original language, author, political group, institution addressed, date submitted and subject of the question, February 27, 2009 ... for closure of the italy.indymedia.org website for ...

4.Copyright 2006 Commission of the European Communities, EUR-Lex Database: Miscellaneous OJ Documents, May 29, 2006, 2006 OJ C 125, [No Date in Original], WRITTEN QUESTIONS WITH ANSWER List of titles of Written Questions by Members of the European Parliament indicating the number, original language, author, political group, institution addressed, date submitted and subject of the question, February 27, 2009
... 2004) Subject: Seizure of Indymedia's European sites Answer from the ...
... 2004) Subject: Seizure of Indymedia's European sites Joint ...

Because of strict license agreements, to see full text you would need to go in person to a large public (university) academic library that has Lexis or other legal databases and is likely to allow on-campus access to them. Even trying to order these legal cases by interlibrary loan would be a very tricky prospect, since ILL offices are generally hesitant to download from databases unless they have very clear license agreements with publishers that allow this.

It is well worth trying the europa.eu Advanced Search for "all words" - indymedia legal (12 hits), or indymedia israel (3 hits). But you may well end up plowing through some very long PDF documents, and you can't rely on the PDF "search in document" (binocular icon) to find words - in 100+ page documents especially.