Jeff German Device Search Prompts First Amendment Debate. How Does it Affect You?

Should police investigators be allowed to search a journalist's devices after the journalist has died? Ashley I. Kissinger, of counsel at Ballard Spahr, represents the Las Vegas Review-Journal and spoke with KTNV Las Vegas about the greater First Amendment implications of the Jeff German device search.

"If the reporter dies, it's really the news organization or organizations that the reporter is working for who needs to protect that information. It's not like the need to protect it goes away," Ashley explained. "If they learn that, oh yeah, even though there was this sensitive, confidential source information, they had to give it over though because there was a homicide case, that's not going to affect just this one homicide case. It's going to affect a whole lot of reporting that may not happen because you've scared them into silence."

Ashley is a member of the firm's nationally regarded Media and Entertainment Law Group.

See the full article and interview here.