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Buffalo News — Shield guards the nation

Congress must pass the bipartisan bill protecting journalists and their sources

The Buffalo (N.Y.) News
Oct. 15, 2007

As we have frequently been reminded in recent months, if we, the people of the United States, want to know what our government is doing, in

Congress must pass the bipartisan bill protecting journalists and their sources

The Buffalo (N.Y.) News
Oct. 15, 2007

As we have frequently been reminded in recent months, if we, the people of the United States, want to know what our government is doing, in our name and with our money, we cannot always count on our government to tell us. We are often going to have to read it in the newspaper.

And, sadly but surely, the newspaper must often find out what it knows from people who could get in a lot of trouble for simply telling the truth. If there is too much risk that those who know the truth will be exposed as the source of it, then they won't talk. And we won't know. And your government will do things, in your name and with your money, that you would not like. If anybody told you about it.

Thus the real need for the federal Free Flow of Information Act to become law. The bill, which is to come before the U.S. House of Representatives any day now, would, for the first time on the federal level, explicitly protect journalists and their sources from the kind of vengeful legal actions that threaten to keep all those necessary whistles unblown.

It most explicitly would not, though, allow journalists with special knowledge to clam up when what they know is essential information in the prevention of a crime or act of terrorism, or when prosecutors have firmly established that there is no other way to bring crucial evidence into court.

Upstate New York Reps. Thomas M. Reynolds, John R. "Randy" Kuhl Jr. and James T. Walsh, Republicans all, are co-sponsors of the act in the House. Over in the other body, Democratic Sen. Charles E. Schumer is also a co-sponsor. In order for this important bill to pass, more of New York's delegation, of both parties, will have to get behind it.

From President Nixon's Pentagon Papers to President Bush's warrantless wiretapping and secret torture memos, there have long been people in government who know that what their government is doing is wrong. They know the people must be told, but they face serious pay-back if they do so openly. So they, quite patriotically, leak.

The number of times that government lawyers have gone to court to try to force reporters to rat out their sources of information has grown troublingly in recent years. Such a practice might make the prosecutor's life easier, but it is not good for the country as a whole. It will silence people who otherwise would reveal the truth, those who would make it possible for the press to do its job so that citizens, in turn, can do theirs.

The Free Flow of Information Act is the best answer we have to that problem. It should become law.

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