Grand Jury Update (Please Repost)

In February of this year I was served with a subpoena to appear in front of a federal grand jury regarding a protest that I shot in the city of San Francisco on July 8th of 2005. I’ve since exhausted all possible means to quash that subpoena and was served a final subpoena on Monday afternoon [June 12th] ordering me to appear this Thursday, June 15th. I have been compiling all associated documents related to this case at the [grand jury resource page](https://joshwolf.net/grandjury/). The case is somewhat complicated, but essentially, I have been ordered to turn over the unpublished video footage of the protest and to submit to examination by the federal grand jury; I feel that this is an attempt to trump the protections afforded to me by the State of California under the state shield law. The assistant US Attorney has asserted that the federal government has jurisdiction in the case because of the vandalism of an SFPD patrol vehicle. The US argues that as the city of San Francisco receives money from the federal government, a portion of the vehicle is, in essence, federal property and thus a federal crime may have occurred. Not only does this logic seem silly, but if unchallenged, will have a deleterious effect on the state protections afforded to many journalists both independent and those that are part of the established media. Just as the police vehicle has some vague monetary connection to the interests of the federal government, so to does any public space including the public roads and sidewalks. In fact, it is my opinion that if this interpretation stands, it has the potential to eviscerate all state protections afforded to journalists and could conceivably have such a dramatic chilling effect on both journalists and their subjects as to effectively kill politically contentious journalism in America. Sure, that’s probably a bit dramatic, but from my perspective this is pretty serious, and I’m curious as to whether there is anyone you know who might be willing to shed light on this story. It goes against my journalistic ethics to provide the footage to the government, and I have every reason to believe that if I were to comply at that level, I would then be asked to identify various activists that I may or may not know on my video and it goes against every moral fiber in my body to sit back and out people for their political beliefs; I have a decent sense of history and I remember that it was not that long ago that Senator Mc Carthy was holding HUAC meetings and inquiring from scores of people who they knew that might be Communist, and it is for this reason that I need to have all of the information pursuant to my case available to me and have had ample opportunity to discuss and assess all options available with my legal counsel before making any decisions in regards to how I will proceed.