The appellate court determined, however, that there was no general protection on nonconfidential material.

Lower courts have frequently ruled that nonconfidential materials were not protected.

I'm forced to rely on the nonconfidential sections from the medical logs of other crew members to garner information.

A lawyer for the defendant argued that the law protecting nonconfidential material was unconstitutional in criminal cases.

Several other Federal appeals courts have recognized the qualified privilege involving nonconfidential sources, lawyers said.

Representatives of several publishers and broadcasters said they would now ask the Legislature to amend the law to include nonconfidential materials.

Occasionally, when pressed, he would confide some bit of nonconfidential information, like a change in the release date of the film.

"This is true whether the sources are confidential or nonconfidential," Mr. Chapman said.

It would reaffirm the protections now given confidential information, while giving qualified protection to nonconfidential unpublished information.

Courts that had extended the privilege to nonconfidential sources "may be skating on thin ice," Judge Posner said.

News organizations are also protected in New York State courts from disclosing unpublished material from both confidential and nonconfidential sources.

The appellate court, in its first decision last September, said the couple was entitled to the unedited videotape because there was no general protection on nonconfidential material.

But a four-judge majority of the Court of Appeals, the state's highest court, concluded otherwise this week when determining if the law applied to nonconfidential materials.

P. 28(f)) The Table of Contents of any nonconfidential brief or appendix must describe the general nature of the confidential material that has been deleted.

In Tuesday's decision, Judith S. Kaye, the court's chief judge, wrote that in criminal cases, a "defendant's interest in a nonconfidential material weighs heavy."

"Save nonconfidential materials with clean backs for possible re-use for copies or original documents," says the notice, which was written by Christopher L. Lane, the department's administrator.

NBC challenged the subpoenas, citing the qualified privilege on material gathered from nonconfidential sources - a protection that the network said derived from the First Amendment.

In rendering its 6-to-0 decision, the Court of Appeals established a legal test for when such nonconfidential material can be obtained in cases to which the news organization is not a party.

A three-judge appeals panel had ruled then that Federal law recognized no privilege for journalists when people in civil suits sought unpublished or unbroadcast material that was gathered from nonconfidential sources.

NBC, the defendant in the case, had argued that a qualified privilege involving nonconfidential sources had long been recognized by the Second Circuit and by other Federal appeals courts.

New York's highest court ruled yesterday that journalists' notes or other materials obtained from nonconfidential sources were not covered by a state law protecting news organizations from disclosing information gathered for a news article.

The city said Ms. Harman had violated a policy barring employees of the Human Resources Administration and the Administration for Children's Services from discussing nonconfidential agency matters without approval.

New York State's highest court broadened protection for reporters yesterday by ruling that, with few exceptions, journalists do not have to turn over news material to the courts, even when it was gathered from nonconfidential sources.

In a strongly worded dissent, three judges argued that the statute did not draw a distinction between confidential and nonconfidential materials and insisted that the majority had misinterpreted the legislative intent behind the law.

Someone seeking to subpoena unbroadcast or unpublished materials gathered from nonconfidential sources can do so only if the material is likely to be relevant to his lawsuit and is obtainable nowhere else, the appeals panel said.