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Palm Beach Post – Why is Bush intent on breaking shield law?

The Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach, Fla.
Oct. 20, 2007

This was in the latter part of the 1970s, and people were trying to throw me and my partner in a federal jail.

The memory of those hectic days is why I'm so interested in something that's taking place in our na

The Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach, Fla.
Oct. 20, 2007

This was in the latter part of the 1970s, and people were trying to throw me and my partner in a federal jail.

The memory of those hectic days is why I'm so interested in something that's taking place in our nation's capital right now.

Dave Casey and I were reporters for a Fort Lauderdale newspaper 20-odd years ago, and we had been writing a series of investigative stories that revealed a prominent restaurant owner to be a dope smuggler with strong ties to the Colombo Mafia family.

We were getting exclusive information from a former dope smuggler and his girlfriend, a young woman who worked in the mobster's main office, upstairs over his restaurant.

We broke stories on how the restaurant owner operated three seagoing freighters that brought in hard narcotics hidden in barrels of tallow, and of how the mobster conned the federal government into financing him to the tune of $95,000 through the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

With the restaurant owner's federal trial fast approaching, it was more important than ever that the identities of our sources be kept secret.

It also was vital to the mobster that he discover our sources and make sure they didn't testify against him.

That's when the subpoenas arrived. Dave and I were ordered to appear in federal court, where we knew we would be given a choice - either reveal the names of our sources or be jailed for contempt of court. Our paper hired some of the best attorneys in the field to defend us.

While the lawyers battled it out, Dave and I waited to see if we would have to appear. Florida had no shield law to protect reporters from such situations, and it still doesn't. If we went to the federal jail in Miami, we both knew of guys serving time that we helped put there with our investigative stories. I don't mind admitting we were nervous.

Then, one morning when I had the day off, the phone rang and it was our male source, calling from out-of-state somewhere. His mother lived in Ohio, and two men had shown up at her door, flashed some kind of badges, and said they were agents from the Internal Revenue Service, looking for her son. She said she had no idea where he was, and they left. She called her son and he called me.

I immediately phoned the FBI agent handling the case, and within the hour, two FBI agents whisked our source away to a safe house.

The agent I had called had checked with IRS and they said no, they had not sent anyone out to find our source, for any reason.

If our source had been at his mother's that day and, maybe, answered the door, we can only imagine his fate. As it was, he testified, his girlfriend testified and the mobster was convicted and given a long prison sentence. Dave and I were never called.

Which brings me back to this week.

On Tuesday, the U.S . House passed - by a lopsided vote of 398-21 - a bill to give reporters limited protection from being forced in court to reveal their sources.

Most Republicans, as well as Democrats, supported the bill.

A similar bill, sponsored by Republican Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee by a vote of 15-2.

Of our local representatives, Democrats Alcee Hastings of Miramar, Ron Klein of Boca Raton, Tim Mahoney of Palm Beach Gardens and Robert Wexler of Delray Beach all voted in favor of the bill.

The bill does not give anywhere near the protection that lawyers, members of the clergy and others receive in federal courts. But it does offer some protection.

Still, President Bush has said that he will veto the bill if it comes to him. A White House statement said such a reportorial shield law could encourage people to leak highly secret information.

Yet part of the House bill states that reporters still could be made to disclose information or sources if such information was needed to prevent acts of terrorism or harm to national security.

Despite that, the White House said, in a statement, that "freedom of the press is important, but it is also important to protect national security."

The thing that puzzles me is that my copy of the Bill of Rights doesn't include the word "but" anywhere.

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