Government officials and lazy prosecutors beware!

This is great stuff, and I speak from experience. In the last seven years, I've been subpoenaed or threatened with subpoenas three times to testify on stuff that I wrote and that was in print. I don't get paid enough to do my job and that of a bunch of lazy prosecutors while violating my profesional ethics.

Not to mention the time I got federal grand jury duty once and warned the federal magistrate that I may run into conflict of interest because some cases I may have covered. I spent three out of four sessions sitting in the hallway because of, guess what?

Advice for paranoid reporters(April 25, 2006) from http://www.slate.com

A Manhattan Project To Create a Neuralizer: "Nothing can expunge knowledge from a journalist's mind," says attorney Bruce Brown of Baker & Hostetler. After all the documents and notes are destroyed and all the phone calls and e-mails are adequately masked, a subpoenaed reporter's brain will still contain the information the prosecutor wants. If the American Society of Newspaper Editors would only fund the development of a "neuralizer," such as was used in the movie Men in Black, reporters could reliably shed every memory about sources after the story goes to press.

Let's get Bob Woodward to volunteer to go first.

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