HOOK, LINE AND STINKER

HOOK, LINE AND STINKER: During the last month we've used the bill (#2149) to allow camping at Lydgate Park as a kind of case study of the long-practiced and well-honed dance of the headless chickens used by the last three Kaua`i administrations- especially in the Department of Public Works (DPW) and the now spun-off Department of Parks and Recreation (DP&R)- to run out the clock on county council oversight of various and sundry mismanagement schhemes.

But the manner in which DP&R Director Lenny Rapozo's final "rope-a-dope" performance yielded a split decision in favor of the bill's passage last Wednesday, gave a whole meaning to "don't ask me- I'm only in charge here."

Of course Rapozo's use of "the fog" and the "I not here" method of administrative oversight could not have been accomplished without council allies willing to look the other way at the misrepresentations and outright lies as well as the lack of any semblance of competency of Rapozo and his underlings.

After months of non-answers to "the eight questions" that had been repeatedly asked, in writing, of Rapozo, the bill was moved out of committee to the full council where last Wednesday despite the fact that there were amendments pending and it was no where near ready for a vote... something that has inflamed Chair Jay Furfaro's hair on many an occasion in the past.

Rapozo appeared after handing in the alleged answers just that morning, claiming he never had the questions- many of which had been sent in writing months ago- until the previous Friday. And, much to Furfaro's chagrin, they hadn’t even been distributed to councilmembers yet.

The old bait and switch made an appearance too. Seems the originator of "the fog" himself, perennial county appointee Ian Costa who now serves as Rapozo's deputy, had unexpectedly shown up instead of Rapozo the week before with Rapozo conveniently on the mainland, allowing Rapozo to claim he had no idea what had happened the previous week.

As we've previously described, it's a classic move Costa developed during the year-long "Developers Gone Wild," grubbing and grading hearings before the council in the 90's which exposed the early misdeeds of Jimmy Pflueger preceding the deadly Ka Loko Dam break for which Pflueger is scheduled to stand trial for murder later this or next year.

The session began with Council Chair Jay Furfaro waving around what a real plan would look like, taken from a Virginia Beach Virginia campground saying "can you kokua me... this is what I'm looking for Lenny."

The questions dealt with almost everything imaginable from lack of a sufficient number of toilets to insufficient staffing for maintenance and security and were seemingly at least partially a result of there being no written plan to make sure the professed "work-class facility" would even be run in an organized and coherent manager.

But try as he might, Furfaro could not get a commitment from Rapozo to put together such a plan by the time camping was scheduled to begin, 60 days after the passage of the bill.

Finally after twenty minutes of trying to get such a commitment from Rapozo, Furfaro demonstrated the council's archetypical part in the avoidance scheme by declaring Rapozo's "no" to be a "yes."

Of course the run-around can't properly function without an administration shill. The role was made for Councilmember Tim Bynum whose "don't confuse me with the facts" rhetoric, previously honed on the issue of the bike path, consisted of declaring the questions to have been answered already- whether they were or not- and calling all criticism of the not-ready-for-prime-time "plan" to be too "meticulous."

This left an opening for Councilmember Mel Rapozo to perform one of his classic ape-like chest beating routines consisting of lines like "That's our job, to be meticulous... guilty as charged."

But perhaps the most Kafkaesque scene in the melodrama played out over the issue of the "fishermen" who have traditionally frequented the area since, well, forever.

As championed by Councilperson Kipukai Kuali`i the council went back and forth, working to make sure fishers could go to the campground and essentially camp out while fishing without really being official campers.

Of course the task was impossible on its face. How do you allow people to stay overnight in the campground, in their tents, as long as they leave their fishing poles stuck in the sand with the line in the water- as described by Kuali`i- and then distinguish who is actually camping without a permit and who is simply fishing.

The council has been asking Lenny Rapozo- and Costa- for the actual metes and bounds of the camping area rather than providing the cruddy little map with dotted lines that had been made part of the bill. Mel Rapozo- an ex-cop- described the absurdity of the prosecution going to court with such a map and how any good attorney could raise enough questions to make it unenforceable.

The answer apparently was simply, as stated by many, that the standard was "we know who is camping and who is fishing."

Oh great. The island isn't sufficiently wracked with charges of "reverse racism" by the increasing number of uptight, malahini mainlanders who can't distinguish between the word "haole" as used descriptively and the more provocative "stupid f-ing haole." Now we have an area where the line between campers and fishermen is going to be- at least in their eyes- as much a factor of the shade of their skin as anything else.

County Attorney Al Castillo didn't really help by hemming and hawing and finally maintaining that it didn't matter what the law said as long as there was "sufficient notice" in the form of signage to tell the users what made a fisherman a fisherman and what made a camper a camper.

As if.

Finally, the answer was to be as ambiguous as possible and the council inserted language that allows "fishermen" to "fish" any place in the campgrounds where there isn't an actual designated camp site.

However all this probably doesn't matter one whit because, it was revealed, the county's park rangers are never there between 10:30 p.m. and 4 a.m. leaving enforcement of the unenforceable provision an academic matter anyway.

The bill passed with Kuali`i and Mel Rapozo voting against it and now it's up to the DP&R to promulgate administrative rules- which promise to be as vague as the bill- in the next two months and decide which parts of the campground to "open for camping" with no real idea of what is going to happen, in a classic Kaua`i County "ready, fire, aim" manner.

But whatever happens you can bet dollars to donuts that we haven't heard the end of the seven-year saga, especially when the first "you're not fishing, you're camping- I can tell by the color of your skin" ticket is issued.

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Note- We're working with a new editor whose schedule is malleable so, although we intend to keep to the 1 p.m. press time, there may be days when it is decidedly later.

BUT WHAT'LL WE DO FOR EGGS?

BUT WHAT'LL WE DO FOR EGGS?: There's jokes and then there's jokes. Our sometimes feeble, often offensive, attempts at humor are at least fairly innocuous in the grand scheme of things.

But, as happens all too often in Hawai`i, when those who police the ethics of politicians become the foxes guarding the hen house, the political joke is on us.

Recently though, a whirling dervish of accountability has taken up residence as the Executive Director (ED) of the State Ethics Commission (EC), and those who thought state ethics laws had been suspended under former director Dan Mollway are having conniption fits.

Some of our readers may remember Les Kondo as the head of the Office of Information Practices (OIP) who fought the good fight to bad results in the infamous ES-177 case that eventually surgically removed the incisors that the legislature had apparently given the OIP.

And now, as the new ED of the EC, Kondo has upset the cushy apple cart of one of the most repulsive of unethical practices- one that calls lobbyists "stakeholders" and appoints them to these "task forces" to essentially write legislation regarding the same subject upon which they lobby.

We've written extensively about our Kaua`i County Charter provision 20.02(D) which prevents anyone from "(a)ppear(ing) in behalf of private interests before any county board, commission or agency" if they sit on a board or commission- or presumably a "task force"- regardless of the subject matter.

The state law does the same if there is a nexus between the job of the lobbyist and the board or commission's kuleana.

But although the law is supposed to cover all bodies appointed by the governor or legislature, whereas Mollway looked the other way, Kondo has now included these "task forces" in the same category as any state appointed body- which of course they are.

And guess what? Shockingly, politicians don't like it.

According to Derrick Depledge's Political Radar blog

State Senate President Shan Tsutsui and House Speaker Calvin Say have asked state Attorney General David Louie whether the state Ethics Commission is correct in defining members of task forces as state employees subject to the ethics code.

In their letter the two wrote:

If individuals from the private sector who participate in these panels are now to be considered “employees” of the State for the purposes of the Ethics Code, we are concerned with the chilling effect on both the Legislature’s ability to gather information and on the constitutional right of these individuals (and their actual employers) to petition government.

This stupid argument has been going on for a week or so in the press and the blogs but no one can come up with the obvious and simple solution to the quandary.

On Kaua`i we had some board and commission members- as a matter of fact some members of the ethics board itself- lobbying the county council for money for their non profits while others were representing developers seeking zoning and zoning permits before the council and planning commission respectively.

And then they'd turn around and rule on the ethics of activities of those granting them their requests.

And just like with the state, they argued that their "rights" to petition the government were being violated. But that ignores the elephant in the room- that sitting on a board commission or task force is not a "right" but a privilege and you can simply step down from your position and let someone who does not lobby other government bodies take your place.

But nooooo. For some reason these pustules on the butt of democracy have been permitted to shed their crocodile tears without anyone telling them to get their asses out of government if they are coming to the government, hat in hand... especially if the subject matter of their appointment is the same as their lobbying, as is true in the case of the state ethics law.

Do we really need to give the guy who is being paid to lobby an extra boost in his efforts by allowing him to skew the actual report upon which the legislature will depend to write legislation?

What- massive campaign contributions aren't enough? Is your bundling finger broken? Did the manapua store close and now legislative staffers are stuck with crummy donuts?

It's simply amazing in this state how politicians, who've been getting away with murder for years, react when a new sheriff that is apparently not on the take actually tries to enforce the law. Why you should have seen them (if you missed it) when Kondo told them they couldn't keep accepting expensive tickets to events if the event didn't have a nexus to their legislative jobs. You'd have thought he was ripping the lollypops out of their lyin' pie holes.

It's bad enough when, as is the case, corporate America has placed its greedy boot heel on the throat of the democratic process. We don't have to have to actually open wide- or bend over- and allow them to place the whole boot where they can do their damage from the inside out.

NOW YOU'RE COOKIN' WITH SUNLIGHT

NOW YOU'RE COOKIN' WITH SUNLIGHT: When Gary Hooser was the Kaua`i State Senator he used to spend the time between sessions asking constituents to help him come up with a "big idea"- some legislation for which he could use his position to really make a difference.

So in 2004 he managed to spend his political capital to pass a bill requiring all new homes to have solar hot water heaters.

It's of course a no brainer- it's without dispute known far and wide as the "low hanging fruit" that pays for itself quickly to provide carbon-free hot water- the most expensive part of a family's energy bill- resulting in free hot water for many years.

But of course nothing worth doing comes easy and the gas company is a huge campaign contributor with lobbyists 'o plenty. So when the bill was finally passed it contained the possibility of a "variance" which turned into a loophole that has been used in about half of all new homes on Kaua`i and the Big Island- and a quarter state wide- to thumb their noses at the law and the environment and use a gas hot water heater instead.

So when the Kaua`i County Council took up a measure to join the rest of the counties in asking the legislature to close the loophole it too sounded like a no brainer.

But for some reason, other than Councilperson JoAnn Yukimura who had introduced the request, when testimony started the others were talking about "eliminating choices" and "options." Kipukai Kuali`i kept pounding on a representative from the alternative energy proponents at Apollo Kaua`i trying to get him to admit that maybe in the future there will be some kind of magical solar electric generation that would be more efficient- an absurd notion since the efficiency of using electricity no matter where it comes from will never be able to match the efficiency of directly heating water with the sun.

It doesn’t matter where the electricity comes from. Using it is still never going to be more economically efficient than direct heat.

So what was going on here. Where was this coming from?

Well it all became clear once the real lobbying began.

First it was the Kaua`i Gas Company GM Glen Takinoshi who came forward to stumble through a prepared text using now familiar terms like "options" and "providing choices" and essentially saying that if the loophole were to be closed The Gas Company could- gasp, perish the thought- go out of business.

When Yukimura basically left Takinoshi a babbling idiot after questioning him about the Gas Company's attitudes toward renewable carbon free energy and global warming- after which he finally said he'd have to check with someone else- they brought in the big gun...the state Vice President of Government Affairs and Communications Stephanie Ackerman whose "are you gonna believe me or your lyin' eyes" testimony was quite effective on the council bumpkins.

Just as Yukimura had run circles around Takinoshi, Ackerman ducked, danced and jabbed trying to make the debate about "personal freedoms" and the big, bad government that wants to take them away from us.

Finally Councilmember Tim Bynum stepped forward to say that sometimes it's the job of government- especially one in a place set to be inundated by the ocean in the not so distant future and one who pays the highest energy prices in the country- to step in and take control from the business lobbyists. He also explained how the more ubiquitous solar hot water heaters are, the less the electric co-op would be required to spend on excess generation capacity to accommodate "peak demand"- a major component of our bills on a "closed grid" island system.

Of course there was no identification of the two as "lobbyists" as council rules explicitly require and Chair Jay Furfaro- whose hair ignites every time a rule limiting public testimony is even stretched- said nothing.

But you gotta admire the nerve of the Gas Company for trying to move people to pity them because they may go out of business.

No, it's not just that they are sole purveyors of propane in the islands and the elimination of companies who sell fossil fuels because there is no longer a demand would bring glee to the hearts of all but the staunchest of climate change deniers. No, it's not even that the claim that they'd go bust is absurd on the face of it since people will still use propane for cooking, clothes drying and even as the back-up system of choice for solar water heater owners.

It's that, more so than any business in the islands- even other monopolies- every customer has a deep and abiding hatred for the Gas Company.

It's not just the way, unlike say the electric, phone and cable companies, they will never ever give you a break on the due date of your bill. It's not just that their prices are marked up outrageously, even when compared to gasoline providers.

No, it's the fact that every single person who works there treats their customers like dirt and with a "what do we care- you've got to buy from us" attitude- an affectation for which every customer seems to have an anecdotal horror story.

When local people talk story about asshole businesses on Kaua`i, the topic always turns to the Gas Company- which not only won't ever deliver gas unless and until your bill is paid in full but will come to your house and remove your remaining gas if you don't pay on time.

And they're uniformly nasty about it to boot.

We've heard people suggest that they must have to pass some kind of anti-customer relations test or attend classes teaching them how to snarl and be generally grumpy and uncooperative.

And these are the guys who are now asking us to have pity on them because closing the loophole in the law requiring solar hot water heaters on new homes will hurt their business.

Even if they were the nicest, most pleasant people in on the island and bent over backward to allow long-time customers an extra day or two to pay their bills, there'd be little sympathy for a fossil fuel company that cried crocodile tears over the possibility that cheap alternative, carbon-free energy would put them out of business.

But when it comes to the Gas Company, we suspect there would be a long line for the opportunity to dance on its grave.

PRESSING MATTERS

PRESSING MATTERS: Big Island blogger Damon Tucker's first court appearance after apparently being beaten by a Hawai`i Island Police Department (HiPD) officer for photographing a fight in progress outside a Pahoa bar didn't yield a plea after his attorney asked for a jury trial and the case was remanded to circuit court, according to coverage by Big Island Chronicle (BIC) reporter Tiffany Hunt Edwards.

Tucker was arrested for "obstructing police operations" even though he claims he was across the street from the police activity he was recording on his iPhone

The big news is, however, that Tucker now has possession of the confiscated phone and the video he took and apparently it shows he was 10-15 feet away, across the street from the altercation, as he had claimed.

But the police report may hold the key to the disposition of the case.

Edwards quotes the report as saying:

“This after officers upon responding to an affray of approx. 10 to 20 adults fighting at the Pahoa Vllg Club, deft [defendant] repeatedly refused to stop physically pushing himself between officers while they were engaged in interviewing witnesses and suspects, and appeared to be very intoxicated. Deft then shoved his camera into the faces of victims at the scene while they were interviewed, and propelled them to become irate. Furthermore, Deft then proceeded onto the roadway placing officers and himself in danger of being hit by passing vehicle. Deft cited he was representative with the Media, however deft was unable to produce proper Media Credentials, (emphasis added) thereby deft became combative and was subsequently arrested.”

Edwards writes that:

Tucker, in responding to the police report’s assertion that he was intoxicated in the incident involving police, shared a statement from a bar bouncer that Tucker was “buzzed” but not drunk. The recovered footage seen by this reporter is pointed toward three police officers and at least one bystander standing at the entrance to the Luquin’s Mexican Restaurant parking lot, across the street from Pahoa Village Club. One of the officers emphatically tells Tucker he is being warned to stop videotaping.

But the statement that stands out to us is that "Deft cited he was representative with the Media, however deft was unable to produce proper Media Credentials" because, according to a recent ruling by the First Court of Appeals in Boston in allowing a civil case to go forward, the public has the same right as a reporter to photograph police in a public place.

According to an article in New American "Simon Glik, a Boston attorney... was arrested on the evening of October 1, 2007 for using his cellphone to record police officers making an arrest on the Boston Common."

But in rejecting the officers' claim of immunity the three-judge panel not only unanimously addressed the reporter vs. public issue but realities in an age of cell phone cameras, "new media" and bloggers.

The ruling says, in part:

The First Amendment issue here is, as the parties frame it, fairly narrow... Is there a constitutionally protected right to videotape police carrying out their duties in public? Basic First Amendment principles, along with case law from this and other circuits, answer that question unambiguously in the affirmative...

(C)hanges in technology and society have made the lines between private citizen and journalist exceedingly difficult to draw. The proliferation of electronic devices with video-recording capability means that many of our images of current events come from bystanders with a ready cell phone or digital camera rather than a traditional film crew, and news stories are now just as likely to be broken by a blogger at her computer as a reporter at a major newspaper. Such developments make clear why the newsgathering protections of the First Amendment cannot turn on professional credentials or status.

The video evidence apparently shows that the claim that Tucker was interfering with a police operation is shibai and certainly under any circumstances beating someone to stop them from taking photographs is not the proper response of police.

As we noted previously, although we haven't been able to ascertain the current procedures on the Big Island, most other jurisdictions stopped issuing official police press passes- which usually solely enabled reporters to go behind police lines at crime scenes- many years ago. That is the case on Kaua`i and in Honolulu and has been done across the mainland specifically because the proliferation of news sources in the age of the internet made distinctions much too vague and arbitrary for a legal differentiation to hold up in court.

If, as is apparently the case, the HiPD is going to try to claim that any part of the case hinges on whether Tucker is indeed a "member of the press"- whatever the heck that is these days- they’re going to be digging themselves a hole in which they will eventually be buried.

CIRCUS BERSERKUS

CIRCUS BERSERKUS: Some are born buffoons; some have buffoondom thrust upon them. But either way they are generally harmless except in a bull-in-a-china-shop way.

One exception that proves the rule is Kaua`i Prosecuting Attorney Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho who is once again on the warpath against the scourge of medical marijuana according to an article by the latest functional illiterate on the staff of the local newspaper, Tom LaVenture

Seems Iseri is doubling down on her efforts to get the legislature to nix bills to move the medical cannabis program out of the Department of Public Safety (DPS) into the Department of Health- where all other such programs reside in their respective states- and provide "compassion centers" where patients with "recommendations" can legally purchase their medicine.

LaVenture's sycophantic write-up describes an August 30 gathering of the local befuddlery hosted by the mayor's anti-drug office where dangerously deluded DPS anti-drug honcho Keith Kamita joined Iseri in protecting their funding. In a scene out of Reefer Madness they engaged in rallying the diminishing troops to narrow the class of eligible patients to those who apparently are already dead.

But conspicuous by his absence was Deputy County Attorney for the Kaua`i Police Department, Justin Kollar who has announced a quixotic run opposing the malaprop- and spittle - spewing Iseri next year.

Kollar appearance last February at an equally absurd alarmist presentation before the county council in support of Kamita's and Iseri's agenda has, in the minds of many political observers, doomed his campaign despite the widespread voters' remorse since Iseri's election almost three years ago.

Although many believe a coconut could beat Iseri, Kollar is, in fact, a "malahini haole" going up against the notoriously racist Iseri who runs her department as a "locals only" club according to virtually anyone with inside knowledge of the department.

Kollar needs to make sure that people- especially the progressive community- actually have a reason to vote for him, not just against her. Although probably three-quarters of the island agrees that the state legislation is way overdue they need a reason to not just leave the ballot blank because they see no difference policy-wise on the issue.

Rumor has it that, despite Kollar's reported statement that “it is baffling and disheartening to see so much more effort being put into making more drugs available to more of our residents,” he has told people that he has softened his position and may support the compassion center legislation although he has yet to say anything new about any marijuana-related issues, such as the decriminalization bill that is also pending next January.

The problem is that people generally "only know what they read in the papers" even if the paper is a piece of crap. And the only issue upon which Kollar has really been reported to have taken a stand is to support the absurd notion that even if there are medical marijuana patients out there it should remain illegal for them to obtain their medicine.

Once the election season is here, the battle between the two promises to get exceptionally nasty with race taking a front seat in a whispering campaign that will make Mufi Hanneman look like Martin Luther King, Jr.

Right now the only thing Kollar has got going for him is that he isn't Iseri. But unless Kollar gets out front with his "new" position soon- assuming he really has one- it could be lost in a battle that gives new meaning to the word ugly.

RUNNING OUT ON THE TAB

RUNNING OUT ON THE TAB: We'd almost forgotten that Sunday was the day of the new Kaua`i "signature event"- supposedly replacing the "Grand Slam of Golf"- much less the shenanigans surrounding it, until that evening when Channel 9's own grinning idiot Keahi Tucker showed up on the screen proclaiming the Kaua`i Marathon a roaring success.

But at least it was something; other than that, there was nothing-nada-zippo off-island PR for an event supposedly designed to attract attention to the island for tourism purposes.

And of course the real news- that this was a make or break year for the problem-plagued race after Kaua`i taxpayers poured another $270,000 down the money-eating rat hole- is nowhere to be found.

Instead Tucker grinned and gushed his way through a short, on-scene, fluff report with no news of past financial improprieties while cryptically proclaiming that "you get a feeling that there’s going to be more in the years to come."

As those who followed the story of the county funding of the event last spring found out, not only has race founder Jeff Sachini said he would pull his funding of the race if it didn't turn a profit by this, the third year, but apparently race organizer Bob Craver had never filed, much less paid, excise taxes on the first two races. Craver was also apparently so busy schmoozing councilmembers for more cash, he was too busy to even apply for available Hawai`i Tourism Authority (HTA) money (councilmembers and the administration had to do it for him at the last minute in order to knock 50 grand off the county's "contribution").

But it seems no one in the media seemed to be interested this weekend in asking about any flim-flam. The only coverage other than Tucker's brief dottering, doting, dufus routine were a couple of fluffy "results" articles in the local newspaper's sports section.

Both articles however did tout how two people had split a previously unclaimed special $15,000 prize for breaking the two and a half hour mark, with neither noting that this only put accounts further in the hole.

As far as the future- where, now that the race is over, marathon organizers are poised to collect another $120,000 check from the county for the 2012 race with no guarantee it will even happen- news about the financial fate of this year's race is utterly absent from the corporate press except for a declaration from Tucker assuring his viewers it was indeed a success.

After losing $350,000 on the first two races, it sure doesn't look like Sachini will make up this year's losses again and thekauaimarathon.com is unsurprisingly quiet on the matter.

The big question is whether anyone is even interested in seeing a spread sheet for the 2011 event. There apparently aren't any accurate ones for the first two races after Craver cravenly tried to submit to the council some mish-mosh of vague "items" that didn't even add up, as the council noted at the time.

As a matter of fact, if past is prologue, losses just might be around... let's see- carry the crook, divide by the bureaucrat, subtract the political considerations... oh about $120,000 this year. Now let's see- where did we see that number? Oh yeah, that was the amount of the check for next year's improbable race that Craver is supposed to pick up as early as today from Office of Economic Development cheerleader and last-place half-marathon entrant, George Costa- who last May seemed more interested in defending Craver's apparently sloppiness, if not misdeeds, than in protecting the taxpayer's assets.

Don't expect marathon organizers to volunteer any information, especially because no one in the media seems to be interested.

And if it turns out that there's more malfeasance on Craver's part, don't expect the council to do any digging into why they just gave him $390,000 for this new "signature event" that turns out to be a forgery.

LESS FEAR, MORE LOATHING

LESS FEAR, MORE LOATHING: Though you'd never know it via statewide media, the biggest trial in years on the Big Island has not only the corporate Hawai`i Tribune Herald's attention but that of various news-blogs that have had blow by blow daily coverage by cannabis activist Matt Rifkin and others.

The two sides have rested in the trial of Rastafarian Rev. Nancy Harris of the Sacred Truth Mission on marijuana cultivation charges after Harris presented a defense based on her religious practice under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

But the trial took a turn yesterday that ought to concern not just journalists but everyone when Deputy Prosecutor Ricky Damerville subpoenaed Tiffany Hunt Edwards, a free lance journalist who hosts the Big Island Chronicle (BIC) "blog." and has reported for various Hawai`i Island publications including the Big Island Weekly (BIW).

Early yesterday Edwards wrote:

From newswoman to newsmaker — Deputy Prosecutor Ricky Damerville “rush” subpoenaed me to testify in the religious use of marijuana trial.

This is a first in my journalism career.

I’m to appear at Third Circuit Court this afternoon to testify in the trial of Nancy Harris who is accused of commercial promotion of marijuana and is using a religious marijuana defense.

At issue is my June 2009 coverage of the case, specifically a free-lance article I wrote for the Big Island Weekly.

Although the trial ended without Edwards testifying the subpoena itself appears to be a blatant violation of the Act 210, the Hawai`i State News Media Privilege law, commonly known as the reporters' "shield law."

As summed up in last year's legislative extension of the law:

Session Laws of Hawaii 2008 (Act 210), established a limited news media privilege against the compelled disclosure of sources and unpublished information to a legislative, executive, or judicial officer or body, or to any other person who may compel testimony.

What that means is that other than the actual article itself the provision of anything the reporter may have seen or heard, including facts recorded in notes, cannot be "compelled."

That type of wording has been interpreted to mean that reporters in jurisdictions that have such shield laws cannot be subpoenaed or "compelled to testify." The article speaks for itself.

Edwards, who herself has also been attending the trial and has written about it on her BIC web site, was not on the original list of witnesses. She told us that she had consulted with two attorneys before the subpoena was withdrawn but didn't say what she would have done had it not been canceled.

The point here is that the very issuance of a subpoena can only be seen as pure harassment on the part of Damerville, especially given that Rifkin's coverage at BIC has been supportive of Harris' defense as was Edwards 2009 BIW article.

While this incident may not be quite as egregious as the 2008 locked-door interrogation at the "cop shop" of journalist and blogger Joan Conrow by Kaua`i Police Department Deputy Chief Clayton Arinaga asking what she saw in covering the "Naue `Iwi" protests, it is equally as offensive to anyone who values a free press.

The law is there for a reason. Journalists should not be acting as volunteer police for many reasons. Not only would credibility- not to mention their safety- become an issue if people think reporters are simply the eyes and ears of the police, but in fact reporters are there to do a constitutionally protected job that requires them to occasionally grant anonymity to those sources who would never talk to reporters if they thought their identities were going to become public.

When police and prosecutors- people who are expected to know the law- ignore it, they can only be seen to be harassing and intimidating journalists causing them to have to think twice as to not just how but what they report.

Will Edwards file a complaint with the attorney general's office or the state bar? We certainly don't know yet but we certainly urge her to follow-up on this matter so as to make sure that it doesn't happen again.