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Herald Bulletin – EDITORIAL: Federal shield law is necessary
- By: ASNE staff
- On: 10/22/2007 17:05:30
- In: Shield law editorials
The Herald Bulletin, Anderson, Ind.
Oct. 17, 2007
We believe: A federal shield law would help reporters do a better job of getting valuable information to citizens.
Tuesday's vote in the House of Representatives on the Free Flow of Information Act was a victory for
The Herald Bulletin, Anderson, Ind.
Oct. 17, 2007
We believe: A federal shield law would help reporters do a better job of getting valuable information to citizens.
Tuesday's vote in the House of Representatives on the Free Flow of Information Act was a victory for journalists and anyone who believes in the free flow of information in a democracy.
The House voted overwhelmingly, 398-21, to protect reporters' anonymous and confidential sources. This seems like an idea whose time has come, following on the heels of Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald subpoenaing journalists as he tried to discover who outed CIA agent Valerie Plame.
Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, R-6th District, who co-authored the bill, said he was surprised at the number of votes in favor of it. "The people are one step closer to preventing a tear in the First Amendment," he said.
More than 50 news organizations, including CNHI, parent company of The Herald Bulletin, supported this legislation. Last summer, a similar Senate bill, sponsored by Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, passed the Judiciary Committee with a 15-2 vote.
Congress is going to need all the votes it can muster because the Bush administration is against a federal shield law. In a statement, the White House said the law "would produce immediate harm to national security and law enforcement." That's debatable, and it's an argument all administrations make. President Nixon did the same when the New York Times and Washington Post published the Pentagon Papers in 1971. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the newspapers. Nothing happened to the republic, there were no compromises to national security, but Nixon, of course, went down.
Too many administrations have hidden behind the cloak of national security. In fact, the term "national security" is sometimes stretched to mean whatever the administration wants it to mean.
A federal shield law would hold government officials to a greater degree of accountability because whistleblowers would feel freer to share their information.
By granting anonymity, sources can give incriminating and controversial information that they normally wouldn't because they feared for their jobs or even their lives.
Citizens normally don't like to see anonymous sources in news stories, and most new organizations don't like to use them. Sometimes, however, not naming names is a necessity to guarantee valuable information is made public.
If journalists are continually hauled into court and told to give up their sources, news that could be very valuable to a democracy comes to a halt.
The Senate must vote on this law before it makes its way to the president, who has vowed a veto. It looks as if Congress has enough votes to override a veto and finally see this law to fruition.
This is an important bill, and we're glad to see our Indiana legislators so involved with it. The bill is a true bipartisan effort that deserves to be made law. Journalists want it, but the public needs it so government officials who prefer to work in dark places can be shown the light of day.