Attorneys for journalist Josh Wolf have filed a new motion for his release, aruging that since prosecutors now realize he won’t cooperate as a matter of principle, continuing to keep him in prison is a form of punishment and he must be released. As of Jan. 24, Wolf has been imprisoned for 157 days, and it is likely that he will become the longest held journalist in U.S. history. As the web site for the liberal group Common Dreams points out, the record for longest a journalist held in prison has been held by Houston reporter Vanessa Legget who was jailed for 168 days in 2002 for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury and turn over her research materials. In 2005, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was released after 85 days in jail for refusing to name her sources in a grand jury investigation. Wolf, 23, is refusing to provide outtakes from a video he shot of an anarchist protest in San Francisco. Wolf has wrote in a letter from prison that he thinks prosecutors want the tape in order to identify anarchists at the protest.
• Press Club, Jan. 20: Pelosi backs Chron reporters, silent on Wolf