Whistle Blowers vs. Journalists

             Jefferey Wigand was once a prominent man in the tobacco industry. He had a degree in Chemistry and was brought into Brown and Williamson to do research on creating a safer cigarette. His research led him find things that if found out by anyone outside of the company, could jeopardize the profitability of the company. Wigand wrote many memos about the carcinogens that cigarettes possessed and BW ignored his claims. He is called a whistle blower for his segment on 60 minutes even though what he did was for the common good of all people. As described in the movie, he was “compelled” to do what he did, which is telling the world that nicotine is addictive. He is threatened, intimidated and loses just about everything because of Brown and Williamson and while carrying such a heavy burden, still told the world about the tobacco industry’s secrets through the help of a CBS producer.

            This Insider is a phenomenal movie that really exemplifies the parallels between journalists and a whistle blower. Wigand knew that the information he was aware of was something that needed to be said. The type situation he was going through was not only a situation of morality but it was exactly what a journalist would be thinking; the world needs to know this information. What the tobacco industry was doing was completely dishonest and was rightfully so, deemed punishable. Henry Wigand looked passed what might happen to him if he tells this information and instead does the humane thing. This action was very similar to a journalist in that they are not leaving things out of an article because if may negatively affect the image of a certain company. This is not always the case, as The Insider showed.

            The 60 Minute staff was in a way, threatened indirectly by the tobacco company through CBS Corporate. They were told to not air the segment because it infringes on an ongoing investigation. With such important information for society to know, one would think that the people making millions at CBS would neglect a lawsuit and air the show. These pieces of information that Wigand was about to tell would change people attitudes about smoking forever yet they held back because of a threat of being sued by the most powerful companies in the world. It is evident that Wigand, and the staff at 60 Minutes went through the same troubles while they were just trying to give people the news.

            What is the most interesting similarity between a whistle blower and a journalist is that they are literally the same thing. The only difference is that journalist’s have the connections to get the information out there very quick. When someone wants to share something to the community about information inside of a company, organization or even government, they are acting as a journalist. While they may very well know it’s not their job, something inside of them is morally compelling them to share the piece of knowledge.

            To me, it is very easy to feel bad for Jeffery Wigand. He did what he thought was right and lost just about everything in his life because of some very selfish people. Journalists do what Wigand did on a daily basis and will continue to deliver objective stories that are necessary.

           

           

Officer Ride Along

            I chose to do my officer ride along back in my home town of Saint Charles, Illinois. I was quite excited because St. Charles is not only a bigger town, but a little bit more delinquent than Cedar Falls, Iowa is. I had the pleasure of spending four hours with Officer Kintz, a long time friend of my families and Deputy Chief of Operations at the PD. Officer Kintz doesn't get out and patrol much these days but he was more than happy to allow me to ride along with him. Kintz has been with the STCPD for about 20 years, five of those as Deputy Chief. When I was in elementary school he was actually our dare officer. He stated that he loves his job and is blessed to be protecting and serving such a great town.
          While we were out on patrol, we came across a few interesting encounters but most of the time, we drove around looking for speeders. About thirty minutes into the drive we were called to a suspected DUI where an officer had already been. The lady, accompanied by what looked to be her son was arrested for driving under the influence. From what I could hear and take in, she was extremely intoxicated and an absolute threat to other drivers. A further search of the vehicle would find an open container of alcohol and a bad of marijuana. Kintz said that this is beginning to become more and more of a regular occurrence compared to how it used to be. He had pity for the women but felt good about getting her off the road where she could have harmed others.
        Being that I am extremely interested in a police officers job I began to ask him about the crime rate in Saint Charles and what has begun to take over the arrest logs. He began by saying the high school is becoming increasingly more open to drug dealers and drug arrests. It is a trickle down effect that starts with adults and makes its way to teens, a sad series of events. He stated that a week previous, he arrested three seniors with possession of heroin, cocaine, and marijuana, all on school grounds. Compared to when I was in high school, their is a three hundred and sixty degree difference. He then got onto the topic of heroin which he said is a very big problem in our town and has been getting worse in the last few years. For a regular citizen of STC to hear this, they would never know. Just 2 years ago, Saint Charles was voted the best place in America to raise a family by Family Circle Magazine. Here is the link:

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=8238087

        Officer Kintz pulled over a few people for routine traffic stops, all of which were let off by warning. Although we did not have the most busy night, I was extremely happy with the conversation I got to have with Kintz. He is a long time family friend that has always been a respected and genuine police officer. I was able to hear about stuff going on in my town that I would never of known with out having this experience and I am grateful for it.

Libel Chapter Outline

Libel law is meant to protect an individual’s reputation. If a person feels that his or her reputation has been affected, they can file a claim against the party responsible asking for damages and monetary compensation hoping to restore their name. This concept of someone’s reputation being worth something is a century old concept with famous writers such as Shakespeare exploring the idea.

An important consideration of libel is the truthfulness of the statement. Just because someone says something about another that can harm his reputation doesn’t mean he will fall void to libel. If the statement is true then the reporter was just doing his job reporting news. Defamation is the false communications about another person that damages that persons “fame” or brings him or her to dispute. Slander and libel are two forms of defamation. Slander is associated with spoken word while libel is with written defamation. The purpose of the libel laws are in an attempt to restore ones reputation when it has been negatively affected.

There are six elements of libel in the plaintiff’s case: A statement of fact, that is published, that is of and concerning the plaintiff, that is defamatory, that is false and for which the defendant is at fault. A statement of fact simply means that there must be an assertion of fact. Opinions cannot be considered libel because an opinion cannot be false. Publication means that the false assertion was made public. There only needs to be one source and one receiver for it to be legitimate. Identification means the plaintiff must show he was the person directly being targeted. There are three ways a person can be identified. Those are through stating their name, stating their title, through photographic images or within a context in which their identity can be inferred. Another element is that the statement must have defamatory purpose. The challenge is defining and establishing the standard of defamation. Lastly the statement must be false. 

Proposition 8

Proposition 8 is an inevitably and extremely controversial topic that creates an enormous amount of attention among activists and counter activists alike. We were asked to watch a PBS special which brought together the two lawyers that are representing 4 plaintiff’s demanding the right of gay and lesbian marriage. Ted Olson (Republican) and David Boies (Democrat) came together in an obscure case to defend basic constitutional rights that may seem unconstitutional to some. Whether one votes against proposition 8 due to political beliefs, hatred, uncertainty or whatever, these two lawyers that represent different parties come together to display the major void in our first Amendment by enacting such a proposition.

Its very interesting that a democrat, one who would typically support gay marriage, and a republican, one who normally will not support it, to come together and represent four citizens of this country who feel they are being treated as second class citizens. This topic goes beyond what someone religiously believes but rather the basic premise of a part of our constitution. We are granted the right of marriage whether it is between a black and a white, an imprisoned felon and a working class citizen, and so on. It is such a basic privilege that to deny someone that right is in direct violation of our constitution. That means that 6 million voters who said ‘YES’ to proposition 8 bi-passed our constitution and voted off of a belief.

Many people who feel gay marriage is wrong created propaganda to display the negative affects this could have on our society. Some consisted of protecting our children, allowing polygamy, allowing sodomy. Others stated that children would not receive the same nurture and care they could get from a heterosexual relationship. The other lawyers could not prove this in fact, for every argument they Olson and Boies had, the defending lawyers arguments were invalid. Olson and Boies basically laughed at such claims. They stated that such ads are only to scare people away from voting the constitutional way. This is a quote from Ted Olson that really stood out to me,

“The leading expert in the world about welfare of children from Cambridge testified that children do as well in a same sex environment, where both of their parents are the same sex, just as well as opposite sex parents. And it's important to recognize California recognizes the right of same sex couples to live together, to have children, to adopt children, or conceive of children in various ways that are available these days. There's 37,000 children or something.”

Our constitution grants us the basic right of marriage. It states that any two citizens may be married. It says nothing about a man and a women but just two citizens, It is clear that Olson and Boies’ arguments will be heard nationwide because it is the right thing to do under the laws we abide from. No argument can disagree otherwise in a legitimate matter. To say no to two people who are loving, law abiding, tax paying and among other things- to say they are not allowed to be married is treating them as a second class citizen thus, unconstitutional.

NY Times vs. United States

The New York Times v. The United States is an incredibly insightful case full of constitutional challenges that differ from ones ethical instincts. Daniel Ellsburg, a military analyst and an employee of the RAND Corporation during the Vietnam War is the genesis of this case. He revieled a long lost of speculation from people in ranks over in N. Vietnam back to the United States. He did so by sending papers to the New York Times and having them publish the never before known information. The speculation was inaccurately portraying the war to Americans in fear of a potential loss. Although this case does not directly involve Daniel Ellsburg, he is a prominent person in it. What this case actually about is the First Amendment, Freedom of speech. The New York Times printed these submissions from Ellsburg and was ordered to stop by the government, a direct violation of our constitutional rights. It was right then when the case was brought to the Supreme Court and discussed among some of the most brilliant lawyers of that time. Erwin N. Griswold argued the case for the United States point of view while Alexander Blickle argued the side of the New York Times.

Griswold’s main point of his argument was not that there had been a breech of stolen government property. Although the states,

“The fact that it was obviously acquired improperly is not irrelevant in the consideration of that question.” (Griswold)

While Ellsburg did take some of the 47 volumes of the Pentagon Papers and disseminate it among people, and not excluded that fact that he did do that, he wanted to portray that doing so directly results in a threat to national security. The documents were not owned by the NY Times nor has there ever been a constitutional rule that the government cannot restrict restraints on the press and freedom of speech. By giving this viewpoint he is showing grey area in our judicial system and attempting to make a point for doing such an unconstitutional thing.

“I suggest that when it is found by the District Court that the publication of the documents in the large may interfere with the ability of the Department of State in the conduct of delicate negotiations now in process are contemplated for the future, that should be enough by itself to warrant a restraint on the publication of the now quite narrowly selected group of materials covered in the special appendix and dealt with in some detail in my closed brief and the related papers which had been filed with the Court this morning.” (Griswold)

The above quote from the oral argument examined shows that although we allow our citizens the freedom of speech and press, if it is going to directly affect the set guidelines, the government must interfere. What was extremely interesting to me was how much information was not known by the lawyers due to the classification of such information. They spoke in extremely abstract and vague means, which is what made the case so interesting.

Griswold stated in one of the later part of his arguments,

“And I suggest to the court that it is perfectly obvious that the conduct of delicate negotiations in how process are contemplated for the future has an impact on the security of the United States.”

His facts to back it up are under an executive order 10501, written under Eisenhower, provides the foundation for this statement. Although in this instance, that executive order does not cover this exact example, Griswold explains that the order is too narrow and broadly written thus the district court judge used the wrong standard in his decision.

The next Lawyer, Alexander Blickle represented the NY Times argument. Blickle was given about 15 minutes less then Griswold was but I feel secured a much more persuasive point. He started by examining the points Griswold brought up in his examination of the case, stating that the details he stated do not relate to this case. He used as a sentence closer for much of his speech,

“Not in this case.”

I felt that is truly powerful because he is right and law is based on facts. Is this information obstructing a code of law? Will the information published directly affect the security of the nation? In my opinion and that of Blickle’s, it does not. Blickle was challenged many times by the Justice’s and given hypothetical scenario’s and for everyone, he had a thought out, well stated answer. He did agree that there could potentially be things in the 47 volumes that could be harmful to future negotiations with other nations but did not feel that it would be applicable to what has been published. While some of the volumes should be classified as top secret, not all of it falls under the standard of top secret, thus making it okay for it to be released.

Blickle stated that under Eisenhower’s executive order, publications that are published must have ‘direct negative affects’ on the nation. In this case, they do not. Again the Justices give him hypothetical examples of instances where the code of law would overstep someone’s humane instincts. His answer is that of a very bold, yet powerful one. Freedom has risks and its something American’s are willing to sacrifice to have.

“Whatever that case maybe in which under this Constitution under its rules of separation of powers, the President has independent inherent authority to act domestically against citizens, let alone to impose a prior restraint, whatever that case maybe, it cannot be this case.”

Mark Murders

On October 31, 1975, the Leslie Mark family was murdered in cold blood. Leslie, Jorjean and their two children were found dead in their home, all with gun shot wounds to the head and heart. One week after the murder, Leslie’s brother Jerry and his girlfriend were arrested for the quadruple homicide and held on a 200,000 bond.

This case shocked the Cedar Falls community. No one thought that the Jerry Mark they knew was capable of such a monstrous act. The person they knew was something quite different then the charges presented. Mark was a popular guy in his hometown of Cedar Falls, Iowa. His family was well known, his personality was engaging, and he was a very smart person. Jerry was the second oldest in a family of four boys whose family trade was farming making them quite wealthy.

This past week in class we were able to sit down with prosecutor Dave Dutton and author Scott Cawelti to further examine this mind baffling murder that took place in a town that was seemingly safe. The two, having extensive knowledge on the case, were a tag team of filled with facts that supported the some-what controversial case. Mark was convicted of the murders solely off of circumstantial evidence, which is hard to do. Although, the evidence that was pointing Jerry to the crime was extremely convincing and there was just too many ironic occurrences for it not to be fact.

District Court Judge Dave Staudt's Presentation

It could not have been 10 seconds into District Court Judge Dave Staudt’s presentation to realize he was in fact, what he claimed to be. A forthright yet tactful man, picking and choosing wisely what he wanted share with us. I have no experience with ever meeting a judge and have definitely never had the opportunity of sitting down with one, accessing information the normal citizen cannot. Staudt’s informative appearance gave our class the opportunity to learn the hierarchy of our states justice system, his background and how he decided to become a judge, along with a long list of criteria and regulation that the typical citizen is uninformed or apathetic to.

He began his appearance by explaining his position in the Iowa justice system. Dave Staudt is 1 of 110 District Court Judge’s statewide, and just a few levels below the Iowa Supreme Court. To be elected to serve this honor, one must first be a lawyer admitted to practice law in the state of Iowa. You must then send an application to the nonpartisan commission along with extensive information about one’s education, professional career, and qualifications. The commission will then conduct interviews selecting just two of the applicants to then be brought forth before the Governor for selection. Staudt was a district attorney for ten years before applying for this position, which adequately qualified him for such a role.

A district attorney is an elected or appointed official who represents the government in the prosecution of criminal offences. They are paid by the state, for the state and do their best to deliver a fair and effective prosecution. The District Attorney’s office is responsible for any cases besides civil suits. Under this position, Staudt had seen “Just about every type of case.” Murders, theft, rape, and the list goes on.

Judge Staudt’s level of positioning in our states justice system sees felony’s ranging from drug trafficking all the way to murder. Depending on the severity or uniqueness of the situation, the Supreme Court of Iowa can step in and take the case at any point in time. An example he gave us of the Iowa Supreme Court stepping in was an issue between two women who wished to be married. At that point in time, gay marriage was illegal under Iowa law. They went to the county clerk to attain their marriage license with the thought of being denied the right of marriage would be unconstitutional. They were inevitably denied a license and chose to sue the state of Iowa. The Judge ruled in favor of the plaintiffs granting them the right to get married. The case was appealed in the Iowa Supreme Court, gaining national coverage and attracting an enormous amount of criticism via supporters of both sides. In April of 2009, a unanimous Iowa Supreme Court upheld the lower courts ruling finding it was contrary with the equal protection clause of a state constitution such as Iowa’s.

Staudt was asked many interesting questions about his own court experiences and accounts. Some along the lines of ruling in favor of the law when maybe his personal beliefs go against what he is ruling. Others asking what his most covered or interesting case has been in his long line of duty. As a District Court Judge, the judicial system is requiring them to interpret the law as stated and then to proceed to making a decision on that case according to law. It is not in their job description to rule in favor of something because they feel it is not unethical or unjust nor can a judge at Staudt’s level interpret the law in hope of a bill for revision. From the sentences above I concluded I could never be a judge. If a case was brought to me and it went against my personal beliefs to rule in favor of the written law, I could not do so. Luckily Judge Staudt said he has never encountered such a case… Yet.