An anti-blog bill
Saturday, August 18th, 2007 by AaronCan a $1,000 misdemeanor fine prevent incriminating photos of celebrities from showing up on the Internet?
A California Assembly Bill hopes so. Introduced by Assemblywoman Julia Brownly, D-Santa Monica, the anti-blog bill, as I have named it, makes it illegal for a member of a law enforcement agency to provide certain information to the media for financial gain. The information includes details of criminal investigations normally withheld or photographs and videos taken without authorization inside secure areas such as prisons or jails.
The bill also outlaws those same people — police officers, sheriff’s deputies, corrections officials and court employees, just to name a few — from coaxing media outlets to cough up the big bucks for exclusive content.
According to a document from the California Senate — where the bill rests now — the law targets, in part, the Internet’s assault on the privacy of celebrities. The document, a bill analysis provided for the Senate, states that “traditional” media — newspapers, magazines and broadcast stations, I assume — go through spokespeople and public records.
However, according to the document, “The new Internet media and others have recently been attempting to circumvent the system by offering law enforcement officials money for information and pictures of celebrities.”
The document quotes the owner of photo agency as saying that during Paris Hilton’s 23-day jail sentence, a photo of her “finding Jesus in a fetal position with a half-eaten bologna sandwich probably [could] get $200,000, maybe it would fetch $500,000 if you could see the tears.”
No such photos have surfaced since the hotel heiress completed her sentence for violating the terms of her probation on alcohol-related charges of reckless driving, but in the age of camera phones and pocket-size high resolution digital cameras, their existence is not too far-fetched.
First Amendment advocates do not like the bill. According to the Senate document, the California First Amendment Coalition considers the bill “overboard” and “not limited to the disclosure of information that is supposed to remain secret.”
What does this mean for the avid reader of The Desert Dispatch? Nothing. It is the paper’s policy not to provide compensation to sources for their information. We will, however, sometimes pay small fees for the cost of photo copying or staff time.
What does this mean for your favorite celebrity blog? It could mean the end of Mel Gibson drunken tirade blog fodder or squash any hopes of seeing a photo of Paris behind bars.
Aaron Aupperlee | Staff writer
