Donovan Slack

Robert Ambrogi reports a Globe reporter who wrote about a performer upset over restrictions on his performance space at Faneuil Hall can't be forced to testify in his lawsuit against the city.

Bruce Peck, who performed as one of those painted mime-ish people, sued Boston in federal court in 2009 after Tom Menino ordered restrictions to ease the noise he said he heard way up in his fifth-floor City Hall office.

Peck wanted to compel reporter Donovan Slack, who wrote about the issue, to testify, but Judge Beryl A. Howell's ruled that reporters and their notes enjoy certain privileges, even for stories that don't involve confidential information, such as this one.