Jailed freelancer freed Tuesday

After 7 1/2 months in federal prison, freelance jounalist Josh Wolf was freed yesterday after a compromise with prosecutors had him post on his web site the video footage the government sought and deny under oath he knew anything about incidents at a July 2005 protest.

Federal prosecutors agreed not to call him before their grand jury considering evidence in a case involving damage to a police car, nor ask him to identify people shown on his video.

Wolf, 24, was jailed last summer after refusing to turn over his video to federal prosecutors after local prosecutors did not pursue the case.

"Journalists absolutely have to remain independent of law enforcement,'' he said. "Otherwise, people will never trust journalists.''

Here's a link to a San Francisco Chronicle piece on Wolf''s release, along with a link to Wolf's web site -- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/04/03/BAGLRP0PAP4.DTL