Josh Wolf

Joshua Selassie "Josh" Wolf (born June 8, 1982) is an American freelance journalist and internet videoblogger who was jailed by a Federal district court on August 1, 2006, for refusing to turn over a collection of videotapes he recorded during a July 2005 demonstration in San Francisco, California.

Wolf served 226 days in prison at the Federal Correctional Institution, Dublin, California, nearly longer than any other journalist in U.S. history has served for protecting source materials.

He graduated from Serrano High School in Phelan, California in 2000.

Wolf, a video blogger who reported on numerous protest and progressive events, videotaped an anti-G8 anarchist protest in San Francisco on July 8, 2005 in which some of the protesters wore masks and vandalized property.

Later that same night, and over the next few days, Wolf edited his footage and posted the video to a local activist news website, Bay Area Indymedia, or Indybay.

Wolf also sold the video to the television broadcast station KRON the day after the protest.

In the process of documenting protest actions, Wolf had recorded a tense scene of a protester being choked by a police officer and another officer threatening passersby with stun guns.

The only other recording that was broadcast nearly as much was a still photograph of a bloody police officer who was injured during the protest, not taken by Wolf.

Other activists who posted video and photographs to the Bay Area Indymedia website were contacted by the FBI seeking their original source materials, but it is unknown how many, if any, turned over their recordings to Federal authorities.

Wolf's videotape is the only known source material from the protest to have been sought by subpoena after refusal to turn it over.

Wolf received a bachelor's degree from San Francisco State University in 2006, and finished a master's degree at the University of California Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in 2011.

His thesis film Police Tape received the Reva and David Logan Prize for Excellence in Investigative Reporting.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup rejected this argument and ordered Wolf be jailed on August 1, 2006 for contempt of court until he complied.

A federal appeals court granted him bail on August 31, 2006 and he was released on September 1, although Wolf again refused to comply with the district court order that he produce the videotape.

On September 18, 2006 his bail was revoked and Wolf returned to prison on September 22, 2006.

The entire en banc Court of Appeals refused Wolf's subsequent appeals.

After Wolf released his video outtakes to the public, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ordered his release on April 3, 2007.

In 2007, Wolf ran for mayor of San Francisco against incumbent Gavin Newsom (finishing in 8th place with about 1 percent of the vote).

The next year Wolf accepted a position at the Palo Alto Daily Post where he reported on the San Mateo County government and that of several cities within the county.

Wolf was born in Santa Rosa, California.

His parents, Len Harrison and Liz Wolf, divorced when he was a young child; he grew up in Wrightwood, California with his mother, an elementary school teacher.

Wolf's middle name, Selassie, is in honor of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I.

His mother was born into a Jewish family, and converted to Christianity, becoming a Messianic Jew and raising Wolf a Christian.

Wolf attended Wrightwood Elementary School in Wrightwood, California and Pinon Mesa Middle School in Phelan, California.

On April 3, 2007, Wolf posted the unpublished footage on his blog after being assured that he would not have to testify about the footage.

The US District Court empaneled a grand jury to determine whether arson charges should be brought against some of the protesters on the suspicion that they may have intended to damage a police car by firing a bottle rocket under it, even though the only official damage reported was a broken tail light.

The premise for Federal intervention in a case involving a city police car was that the car was funded in part by Federal dollars.

Josh Wolf did not shoot any footage of the car incident.

But because he shot other video footage elsewhere during the protest, and the identities of some of the protesters were allegedly known to him, Wolf was targeted by Federal officials.

Wolf was subpoenaed by the court, requiring him to turn over his footage and submit to testifying before the grand jury.

Specifically, the FBI subpoenaed him to provide "all documents, writings also and recordings related to protest activities conducted in San Francisco" between 6:30 p.m. and 11:59 p.m. on July 8 as well any cameras, recording devices, and his computer.

Wolf refused to comply with the subpoena.

His case was picked up by the National Lawyers Guild who asked a federal magistrate in San Francisco to block the grand jury subpoena, arguing that taking such action would have a chilling effect on other journalists covering future protests.

February 7, 2007 marked the 169th day of Wolf's imprisonment, surpassing the time served by Vanessa Leggett, a Houston-based freelancer who was imprisoned for 168 days in 2001 and 2002 for declining to reveal unpublished material about a murder case.

Wolf remained in jail for a total of 226 days, the longest time a U.S. journalist has been held in contempt for refusing to divulge sources or unpublished material.

On April 3, 2007, according to Wolf's lawyer David Greene, prosecutors dropped their insistence that Wolf testify before a grand jury after he posted the unaired video online.

With permission from the prosecution, U.S. District Judge William Alsup signed an order requiring Wolf's release from the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California.

There were a number of important legal issues at dispute in this case, including:

Wolf argued that first amendment protections allow journalists to refuse to comply when a grand jury is not conducted in good faith.

Specifically, Wolf believes that the government wants his video tapes to help them identify people who were participating in the protests, not for actual footage of a crime that was committed.