California Court of Appeal

Denial of protective order for website publishers seeking to prevent discovery of identities of persons disclosing real party's secret plans for new recording technology is vacated where: 1) the subpoena to the email service provider cannot be enforced consistent with the plain terms of the federal Stored Communications Act; 2) any subpoenas seeking unpublished information from petitioners would be unenforceable through contempt proceedings in light of the California reporter's shield; and 3) discovery of petitioners' sources is also barred on this record by the conditional constitutional privilege against compulsory disclosure of confidential sources.

Appellate Information

• Decided 05/26/2006
• Published 05/26/2006

Judges

• RUSHING, P.J.

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Law Offices of Richard R. Wiebe, Richard R. Wiebe, San Francisco, Tomlinson Zisko, Thomas E. Moore, III, Palo Alto, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Kurt B. Opsahl, Kevin S. Bankston, Los Angeles, for Petitioner Jason O'Grady et al., O'Melveny & Myers, George A. Riley, David R. Eberhart, Dhaivat H. Shah, San Francisco, James A. Bowman, Los Angeles, Ian N. Ramage, San Francisco, for Real Party in Interest Apple Computer Inc., Thomas W. Newton, San Francisco, James W. Ewert, for Amicus Curiae for Petitioner California Newspaper Publishers Assoc., Lucy D. Dalglish, Gregg P. Leslie, Grant D. Penord, for Amicus Curiae for Petitioner Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press., Center for Internet & Society, Lauren Gelman, Stanford, for Amicus Curiae for Petitioner Center for Internet & Society., Paumilia & Adamec, Justene Adamec, Pasadena, WLF The Williams Law Firm, J. Craig Williams, Newport Beach, Enterprise Counsel Group, Jeffrey Lewis, Benjamin P. Pugh, Irvine, for Amicus Curiae for Petitioner Bear Flag League., Akin Gump Strauss Hart & Feld, Elizabeth H. Rader, San Francisco, for Amicus Curiae for Petitioner United States Internet Society et al., Keker & Van Nest, Michael D. Celio, Steven A. Hirsch, Clement S. Roberts, San Francisco, for Amicus Curiae for Real Party in Interest Genetech, Inc., Ann Brick, San Francisco, for Amicus Curiae for Real Party in Interest ACLU., Perkins Coie Brown & Bain, Dan L. Bagatell, Joel W. Nomkin, Phoenix, AZ, Covington & Burling, Sonja D. Winner, San Francisco, for Amicus Curiae for Real Party in Interest Intel Corp., et al., Quinn Emanuel Urquhart, etc., Robert W. Stone, Kathleen M. Sullivan, Redwood Shores, for Amicus Curiae for Real Party in Interest Information Technology Industry Council.