The EFF is becoming an increasingly useless and hypocritical organization. Let's take a look at the facts:
1. Apple isn't arguing that bloggers aren't journalists. In fact, they are arguing that bloggers and journalists should be held to the same standards.
2. Apple isn't arguing that journalists can't print confidential information. They are arguing that the journalists do not have the right to withhold the identity of their sources when that confidential information constitutes a trade secret.
3. The EFF is just using the same FUD tactics they accuse everyone else of using.
4. Even when the EFF is in the right,
they almost always lose, setting dangerous precedents. They clearly don't know how to pick their fights.
Personally, I'm with Apple on this one. Anyone else who withholds information in a court case is charged with obstruction of justice, so what makes journalists so special? The first amendment guarantees journalists the right to print information, not to keep their sources confidential.
Journalists will argue that source confidentiality is necessary to freedom of the press, and that is why many states have "shield laws" for reporters that grants them this privilege. But it seems to me that in cases like this, the very act of giving this information to journalists is a crime, or at the very least a breach of contract that must be resolved by the courts.
Allowing journalists to deny the courts a path to justice when they are participants in the criminal act itself seems to me a dangerous loophole, especially when the journalist profits directly from the exchange of such information.
