The case of Josh Wolf, spending his 57th day in prison for refusing to turn over his video of an SF protest to a federal grand jury, raises some thorny issues and it's not as simple as censorship on one hand or rule of law on the other.

Demian Bulwa considers the issues in today's SF Chronicle: Is Wolf a journalist or an activist? Are federal authorities pulling an endrun around California's shield law? Should there be a federal shield law and is this really the case that proves it?

Wolf's lawyer, Martin Garbus, revealed some details of what's on the tape that Wolf refuses to show in court - it doesn't show the attack but does include interviews with 10 protesters who took off their masks to talk to Wolf's camera.

"They expected he would safeguard them, which is what he is doing," Garbus said. "When they take off the masks and talk to this guy, they're assuming it will not be shown in a hostile place," such as a grand jury room.

Earlier, I wrote that it didn't seem that Wolf was actually protecting sources. If there are people he's protecting that improves his claim a bit. But note that Garbus says, "they're assuming," but journalists don't go to jail over assumptions - only when they make promises. Journalists need to stand by their promises and be willing to go to jail to keep them. Doesn't this smack of something else - not a promise but an oath from one activist to another?

And then Wolf offers this rationale in a phone call from prison:

If he screened the video for the grand jury, he said, "They would say, 'Do you know this person, or this person, or this person?' They would then take all those people and call them into the grand jury, the same way the House Un-American Activities Committee did to create a list of Communists."

Give me a break: Only one thing stands between modern American democracy and a return to McCarthyism - Josh Wolf? One is tempted to say he has delusions of grandeur, but what actually makes sense is that he is protecting fellow activists, while wearing the cloak of journalism? Is that too harsh?