Should reporters be deputies for the police?

I found [url=http://canadianmuckraking.blogspot.com/2009/12/should-reporters-be-deput... blog post[/color][/url] quite amazing. You should read the whole thing, but I'll try to quote enough to give the flavour:

Quote:

A ruling by the Manitoba Court of Appeal this week has some important lessons for police and the media, and the troubling tendency on the part of police agencies to use media to further their investigations.

[SNIP - story of incident which led to the "production order" is omitted here]

Instead of responding to the call for an independent inquiry, the RCMP decided to ratchet up its own investigation. Police were granted an ex parte hearing before a provincial court judge. The judge issued production orders which would force CBC, CTV, Global and APTN to turn over all their videotaped material from the press conference and the one-on-one interviews that followed.

And everything about these production orders was to remain a secret. Here is the provision as it applied to the CBC:

"Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and any employee, servant or agent shall not directly or indirectly disclose or permit disclosure of the content, existence or operation of this order, in any manner, or to any person except as may be necessary for the purposes of compliance with its terms or obtaining the advice or assistance of legal counsel unless otherwise ordered by a Court of competent jurisdiction."

Failing to comply with a production order carries a fine of up to $250,000, or a six-month jail term.

CBC and CTV refused to comply with the orders and took the matter to court, where Justice Glenn Joyal of Manitoba Court of Queen's Bench quashed the orders. He ruled that the production orders constituted an unreasonable search of a media organization pursuant to section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Attorney General of Manitoba and Canada both appealed that decision to the Manitoba Court of Appeal. Earlier this week, the appeal court upheld Justice Joyal's judgment and dismissed the government's appeals.