The Eighth Annual Muzzle Awards (continued)

ERNEST TORRES

Judge punishes press over anonymous sources

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press, but it does not guarantee journalists the right to protect their confidential sources. Yet anonymity can be a crucial tool in exposing government wrongdoing. Consider W. Mark Felt, the former top FBI official who recently revealed that he was Deep Throat, a key source in bringing down the criminally corrupt Nixon administration.

As the late Supreme Court justice Potter Stewart wrote in his dissenting opinion in the 1972 Branzburg v. Hayes decision, "The reporter’s constitutional right to a confidential relationship with his source stems from the broad societal interest in a full and free flow of information to the public. It is this basic concern that underlies the Constitution’s protection of a free press." Mindful of Stewart’s stirring words, Branzburg judges have generally tried in the years since to strike a balance before ordering reporters to reveal their sources.

Unfortunately, US District Court judge Ernest Torres thinks otherwise. Last December, Torres sentenced Jim Taricani, a reporter for WJAR-TV (Channel 10) in Providence, to four months of house detention. Taricani’s offense: refusing to reveal who had violated a court order by giving him a videotape of Frank Corrente, a top aide to then–Providence mayor Buddy Cianci, accepting a bribe. Taricani’s punishment surely would have included prison had it not been for concerns about his fragile health. Yet Taricani’s report was in the best tradition of the First Amendment, showing government corruption at its most blatant.

Taricani’s integrity won him the respect of his peers. Last November, the Providence Phoenix (to which he is an occasional contributor) named him a "Local Hero," and he recently received an award from the Radio-Television News Directors Association. "I believe to this day that we were right in airing this tape," Taricani said in a recent interview (see "Back on the Beat," Providence Phoenix, June 3). He added that "this was such a vivid example of public corruption that the public should see it."

If Judge Torres had had his way, it never would have happened.

KATHLEEN O’TOOLE

Smile for the TV camera: Big Sister is watching you

For a government intent on watching your every move, last July’s Democratic National Convention was the gift that keeps on giving. Surveillance cameras in public places were hardly unheard-of before the DNC came to town, but the first major political gathering since 9/11 gave them a huge boost.

As a result of security concerns over the FleetCenter event, Boston is now wired with more than 1000 cameras owned by various government agencies that are capable of monitoring huge chunks of downtown Boston from a single command post .

The cameras are owned by agencies as varied as the Federal Protective Service, the Coast Guard, the Mass Turnpike Authority, and the MBTA — so there’s no shortage of candidates who could receive this Muzzle. For both symbolic and substantive reasons, though, the Muzzle goes to Boston police commissioner Kathleen O’Toole, whose agency has about 30 cameras, and whose underlings have been enthusiastically outspoken proponents of keeping an electronic eye on all of us.

As Superintendent James Claiborne put it after the DNC: "It was just amazing. You could read a license plate, capture a high-quality still picture. It’s all going to be very, very useful."

Despite the potential threat to civil liberties posed by such a network, it’s not clear how extensively the cameras are actually being used. "It’s all a big mystery," says Urszula Masny-Latos, director of the Massachusetts chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. "Depending on whom you talk to, you get a different answer."

Nevertheless, there’s little question that law enforcement is moving toward watching us with increasing regularity as we go about our business. Boston police have installed a network of cameras in Chinatown, with overwhelming (though hardly unanimous) neighborhood support. And, more recently, the contagion crossed the city border, into Chelsea, where 34 cameras will keep an eye on the entire city.

Twenty-one years after 1984, Big Brother — or, in this case, Big Sister — really is watching you.

CITY OF AUGUSTA

Pay-to-protest lawsuit enters its second year

This is not the first time we’ve had a repeat winner. Former Massachusetts governor Paul Cellucci took home three Muzzles, becoming the one and only inductee into our Hall of Shame (see "The Fourth Annual Muzzle Awards," News and Features, June 28, 2001). Nevertheless, a diligent search by dozens of Muzzle Central interns confirms that the City of Augusta is the sole recipient of more than one award for exactly the same offense.

Last year city officials in Augusta dishonored themselves for imposing $11,800 in fees on an antiwar group that was seeking to demonstrate on the streets of the state capital (see "The Seventh Annual Muzzle Awards," News and Features, July 2, 2004). US District Court judge John Woodcock ruled that the organizers would have to pay only $1800 for police details and clean-up costs — an abridgement of the protesters’ First Amendment rights, to be sure, but not nearly as onerous as what the city had originally sought.

Now the case is back in Judge Woodcock’s courtroom, with Timothy Sullivan, a leader of the antiwar activists, arguing that Augusta’s system of not-so-free speech discriminates against the poor. Sullivan and his lawyers also oppose requiring protest organizers to provide 30 days’ notice and to meet with the police chief. As one of Sullivan’s lawyers, Davie Webbert, has observed, the latter rule would be a real impediment if the purpose of the demonstration is to oppose police misconduct.

At a hearing on June 1, city attorney Stephen Langsdorf told Woodcock, "We think city taxpayers should not have to bear the cost of traffic control and shutting down streets." That is an exceedingly narrow view of the First Amendment. As Zachary Heiden, a staff attorney for the Maine Civil Liberties Union and co-counsel for the plaintiffs, puts it, "There should be no cost associated with free speech. All people in Maine should have the right to express their views in the state’s capital, regardless of their political affiliations or their ability to pay."

Judge Woodcock’s decision is expected soon.