I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the fact that they sold to well known publication indicates that the material was newsworthy.
I don't agree with raiding a journalist at all (in general), but more importantly I feel the sledge hammer + guns approach is clearly intended to be intimidating and has no place in this kind of warrant. In essence I have more of a problem with the egregious use of weapons and violence on the part of police enforcing a warrant for a non-violent, and non-weapon related crime than I do specifically the attack on journalism.
Obviously the attack on journalism is bad, but in general the intimidation by police is a more widespread problem. Basically the problem for real journalism is the fact that a warrant was issued on a journalist in the first place (think pentagon papers as example of truth to power).
Comments
I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the fact that they sold to well known publication indicates that the material was newsworthy.
I don't agree with raiding a journalist at all (in general), but more importantly I feel the sledge hammer + guns approach is clearly intended to be intimidating and has no place in this kind of warrant. In essence I have more of a problem with the egregious use of weapons and violence on the part of police enforcing a warrant for a non-violent, and non-weapon related crime than I do specifically the attack on journalism.
Obviously the attack on journalism is bad, but in general the intimidation by police is a more widespread problem. Basically the problem for real journalism is the fact that a warrant was issued on a journalist in the first place (think pentagon papers as example of truth to power).