Press-Telegram – Approve the shield law

• By: ASNE staff
• On: 10/29/2007 09:04:25
• In: Shield law editorials

The life force of a democracy sometimes needs protection.

Press-Telegram, Long Beach, Calif.
Oct. 21, 2007

Some wondered if this would ever happen, but the House of Representatives last week passed a bill that is close to the heart of a democracy because it helps assure a free flow of information. Moreover, the vote was by a wide and veto-proof margin.

The act, in the words of someone we rarely quote, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is "fundamental to our democracy and ... to the security of our country." Usually referred to as a shield law, it would support the right of journalists to protect confidential sources.

Many states, including California, already have shield laws, but the federal government has been the holdout. Various administrations, including the current one, have tried to maintain that Justice Department policies already protect journalists' confidential sources.

The current administration makes the same point, which no one should take seriously. The White House has said the president would veto the act if it is passed by both houses.

Passage by the Senate, however, is not a sure thing. The American Society of Newspaper Editors, whose members staunchly support a federal shield law, has had experience before with formidable blockages thrown up by just a single senator.

But the time has come for passage of a federal shield law. The margin in the House vote makes the point forcefully: 398-21. Among the very few opposing the measure are those disappointed that it isn't strong enough.

The bill in its present form covers only those who practice journalism as a substantial part of their livelihood or substantially for private gain. It ought to cover bloggers and others as well. The First Amendment protections of a free press safeguard the rights of all Americans, not just those on certain payrolls.

There have been many wrongdoings corrected only with the help of confidential sources, the most celebrated being the Watergate crimes in the Nixon administration. But such wrongs exist at all levels.

And the protection is essential at many levels, not all of them in the big-city centers of journalism that brought down the Nixon White House. For example, an alternative weekly newspaper, the Phoenix New Times, is the target of a potentially devastating onslaught by the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.

The weekly reported on its plight Thursday, at its own peril because of grand jury secrecy rules. The owners, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin, were quickly arrested on misdemeanor charges of violating those secrecy rules.

The newspaper had been the subject of a grand jury subpoena so broad in scope that one constitutional law expert at Arizona State University, James Weinstein, called it "outrageous." The subpoena demanded not just information from reporters, but information about all the online readers of the newspaper including their Internet domain names and the Web sites they visited before reading New Times.

The newspaper's supposed offense? It published an article saying that the county sheriff, Joe Arpaio, kept his home address private to shield nearly $1 million in cash real-estate transactions. Phoenix New Times printed that address, allegedly in violation of a state law.

It would take more than a shield law to protect the Phoenix New Times from the potential horrors of a secret grand jury investigation. But, if you'll forgive our digression, the Phoenix case illustrates the main point.

Citizens in a democracy need a free flow of information, and the sources of that information sometimes need protection. A shield law provides not all, but some of that protection.