At stake is something that SFist holds very dear to our heart -- the concept that bloggers have what journalists working in any other medium have, namely, journalistic privelege. We have our own anonymous sources without whom we wouldn't be able to report on behind-the-scenes action at the Chronicle, or, for that matter, scoop them on interesting stories. When people talk about a 'chilling effect' on the blogosphere, it means that SFist could not legally guarantee confidentiality to any source. Who would talk to us then? From the New York Times:

Judge James Kleinberg of the Santa Clara County Superior Court in San Jose, Calif., told the lawyers in the case late Thursday that he was leaning toward permitting Apple to issue subpoenas to the three publishers, Powerpage.org, Apple Insider and Think Secret. He is expected to issue a formal ruling as early as next week.

Powerpage.org and AppleInsider are being represented by Kurt Opsahl of San Francisco's EFF, and the other case, involving ThinkSecret, is being handled by Terry Gross of San Francisco's Gross & Belsky. A great account from the scene is Pip Macki's live report, link via BoingBoing. While the crux of the case is whether or not the information published is protected because it "serves the public interest," and that blogs are protected as "periodical publications," the issuance of subpoenas in any event would serve what would seem to be Apple's intent -- to make an example of a few bloggers in order to send a warning to bloggers everywhere.

With bloggers like Dan Gillmor weighing in [PDF], Jeff Jarvis trading emails with Bill Keller regarding the relationship between bloggers and the mainstream media, and NYU Journalism professor Jay Rosen blogging (hey -- catch him on the Daily Show!), when will people wrap their heads around the idea that blogging is just a tool, which anyone, including journalists, can use?