Approve the shield law
Committee vote, possible today, should move bill toward passage
After a few weeks of confusion and apprehension about counterproductive revisions, the White House, Congress and the news media have agreed to a federal shield law that balances the legitimate and constitutional needs of both journalists and the courts. The bill is now ready for consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which should promptly approve it.
The law, versions of which are already on the books in 49 states … including New York … and the District of Columbia, offers journalists protection from having to reveal confidential sources. That's crucial, because many people won't come forward with important public information without anonymity. If they believe a reporter will be forced to give them up under threat of jail, the public ultimately will be more poorly served.
President Obama, who supported such federal protection when he was a senator, unaccountably backed away from that support in October, just as months of arduous negotiation produced a compromise bipartisan bill. The administration's proposed changes, in effect, would have gutted the bill.
Fortunately, he indicated a willingness to continue talking and those efforts now have produced a bill with broad support from the White House, Congress and the news media. Much of the credit goes to Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., who pursued this matter with dogged conviction, along with Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa.
As it now exists the bill treats the prosecutors and the defense the same in their efforts to compel testimony by journalists, rather than giving the government more power. It requires those seeking to force a report to testify that they have exhausted all other sources for the information sought and, for the first time, requires the attorney general's office to certify that it has followed the Department of Justice's own guidelines for seeking information from the media. Previously, these were voluntary.
The bill offers no privilege to journalists where the information is needed to stop, prevent or mitigate death, kidnapping or substantial bodily harm. There are also separate standards for breaking the privilege where the information is needed to protect national security or prevent terrorist activity.
In addition, the definition of a "covered person" or journalist has been strengthened by deleting the need to show that journalism provides the person a substantial financial gain, and focuses instead on whether the person is regularly gathering information for public dissemination. That will protect bloggers and others who dig up useful information without deriving their primary income from those efforts.
The bill is not perfect from anyone's point of view but is acceptable by all. Thus, it is what it seems: a good and fair compromise. This legislation will help to ensure the vitality of news gathering, a function so critical to the nation's political health that the framers saw fit to provide blanket protection to the press in the First Amendment.
The Judiciary Committee is expected to vote on this matter today. Its members should approve it unanimously and recognize that in doing so, they have served the country and their constituents very well.
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