Standing alone against Apple
Where is the outrage?
Ciarelli is accused of doing exactly what reporters all over America are supposed to be doing: finding and publishing information that institutions don't want to reveal. Do you think the Pentagon would have released additional details about football hero Pat Tillman's death by friendly fire in Afghanistan unless pressed by
Where are the always-vocal guardians of the First Amendment? Where is the American Civil Liberties Union? Where is the American Society of Newspaper Editors? Where, for that matter, is Harvard's Nieman Foundation? They have publicly supported the higher profile case of The New York Times's Judith Miller and Time magazine's Matt Cooper, who have been ordered to reveal the sources of their reporting on the contentious Valerie Plame case. But I found not a word about Ciarelli -- a Harvard undergraduate and a beat reporter for the Harvard Crimson -- on the Nieman Watchdog website.
Maybe it's time for the Niemans to stop playing footsie with the butchers of Beijing and start standing up to the control freaks of Cupertino. The Ciarelli case ''really hasn't come to our attention in any significant way at all," Nieman curator Robert Giles says.
Ciarelli's lawyer, Terry Gross of San Francisco's Gross & Belsky, has been underwhelmed by support for Ciarelli among mainline news organizations. ''I keep telling reporters, 'This could be you,' " Gross says. ''I had hoped that more First Amendment or journalists' organizations would stand up behind him." To be fair, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (''Defending Freedom in the Digital World") quickly supported Ciarelli, and two prominent journalists, Tom Goldstein, former dean of the journalism schools at Columbia and Berkeley, and Dan Gillmor, a longtime columnist at the San Jose Mercury News, have submitted expert testimony for Ciarelli in his case.
Gross is savvy enough to know he will attract support if and when the Ciarelli case is appealed. In a related Apple case, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the Associated Press, the California First Amendment Coalition, the Los Angeles Times, the Society of Professional Journalists, and seven other media organizations filed friend of the court briefs opposing Apple. ''If the Ciarelli case goes to the appellate level, I think we would be involved," says Aden Fine, an ACLU attorney.
Kevin Goldberg, general counsel for the American Society of Newspaper Editors, explains that ''there has not been a lot of overt support for Nick Ciarelli because a number of newspaper reporters are on the hook and facing immediate jail time. That's going to distract a lot of people." Goldberg points out that many experts haven't made up their minds whether an online publication like Think Secret should enjoy the same First Amendment protections extended to print and broadcast media: ''Ciarelli's not viewed as a member of the traditional media, and that makes it difficult for anybody to understand what law currently applies."
Law & order, part deux
Barnes & Noble's sleazy attempt to rip off Judith Re's ''Social Savvy" franchise (this space, April 21) came a cropper this month when Judge Richard Stearns rejected the giant bookseller/publisher's bid for summary judgment in the case. You may recall that B&N dredged up a North Shore etiquette consultant, Jodi R.R. Smith, to turn out two books on ''Social Savvy" shortly after Re's long-selling ''Social Savvy: A Teenager's Guide to Feeling Confident in Any Situation," went out of print in 2004. Stearns wrote that ''Smith's books in the minds of [some] consumers might be thought to be associated with Re," and set a trial date for Aug. 21.
Alex Beam is a Globe columnist. His e-dress is beam@globe.com. 
