Apple’s Legal Course-Asteroid and the First Amendment

A check of the Apple rumor and news sites this morning shows that Apple won a court injunction to seek materials concerning the sources of the leaks surrounding an upcoming Apple product named “Asteroid”. Unlike what was first thought, Apple does not seem to be prosecuting the websites right to publish the leaked material but is going after the sources who leaked it to them. Apple certainly has a right to seek disclosure of those sources; after all, they undoubtedly broke the non-disclosure agreements they signed. The question that will push on the First Amendment is whether the websites can be compelled to disclose sources.

The bigger question in all this is whether web bloggers, writers, and editors deserve the same First Amendment protections journalists or writers at a newspaper would receive. I’d like to ask: Why not? The First Amendment does not simply guaranteed the right to free speech—and writing, no matter how it is presented, has been a cornerstone of that right since the country was first founded—based on the equipment or means the writer uses to present those views to the public. Nor does it specify that the only recognized journalists are those employed by a business or institution. To do so, and for the courts to only recognize those, would be to say that First Amendment protections are only for an elite class. The other argument I’ve heard, which I consider largely a version of sour grapes, is that web writers and journalists don’t have the same type of training or maintain the same journalistic standards, and therefore don’t deserve the protection. In neither case does the Constitution make such a distinction, i.e, the rights are inherent with being a citizen, not a journalist or an employee.

Every blogger or writer who posts his words on the Internet is taking a personal and legal risk. The recent stories of people fired over their blogs (and I may have been denied a job position because of it as well) and the Apple lawsuits prove that this groups’ risks are no different than any other journalists’ or writers’. They deserve the same protections if they’re writing inside the boundaries of this country as any other writer or journalist. Only the means of presentation and ease of access have changed. The messages, responsibilities, and risks have not.