A federal appeals court has refused to hear the case blogger and freelance journalist, Josh Wolf, who now could end up spending almost a year in prison for his refusal to turn over unedited video of a San Francisco protest he filmed over a year ago.

Wolf posted footage of the 2005 violent protest on his blog, which was picked up by local and national media. During the filmed incident , a police car was vandalized.

Though Wolf denies he filmed the actual attack on the police car, in September a federal judge ordered him to testify and turn over all of the footage, which he refused. According to the new ruling, if he doesn’t turn over the footage and his sources, he will remain in custody until July 2007, when the grand jury expires.

Lucie Morillon, of Reporters Without Borders calls the Federal appeals court decision “absurd.”

“Josh Wolf is about to set a precedent as the longest reporter held in the United State s for refusing to disclose his sources,” Says Morillon. “He’s not a criminal, he was just protecting his sources which is something many journalists have to do.”

Dave Heller of the Media Law Resource Center, an legal organization specializing in first amendment rights, says the burden should fall on the government to prove that a journalist’s materials are absolutely needed for a case. He says Wolfe’s jailing is especially troubling .

“The request for information to get his tapes does seem to be somewhat removed from the focus of the investigation, or at least nothing essential to it,” says Heller. “In that setting it’s troublesome that the consequence for not cooperating is to be thrown into jail for a lengthy period of time.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California, who prosecuted the case against Wolf says “the incident is under investigation so that the grand jury can determine what, if any, crimes were committed.” and that, “this office did not initiate a federal investigation in order to circumvent the California State Shield law.

Morillon says jailing journalists for protecting sources is becoming a “chilling trend” in the United States. “More and more journalists are being subpoenaed by federal courts, they are being forced to reveal their sources,” she says.

“If confidentiality of sources can’t be granted, where is journalism going to go?”

Last month in Reporter’s Without Borders annual ranking of press freedom, the United States dropped nine places to number 53, in line with such countries as Botswana, Croatia, and Tonga.

Source: The Blotter / Dana Hughes