Winston-Salem Journal – Shield Law

• By: ASNE staff
• On: 10/29/2007 16:01:59
• In: Shield law editorials

Winston-Salem Journal
Oct. 22, 2007

President Bush says that he will veto a reporters' shield law if it ever comes to his desk. We're not surprised; his administration has been about as hostile to the concept of a free and independent press as ever this country has had.

The House and Senate have different versions of a shield bill, which would help reporters protect the identity of their sources. The bills do not create a complete layer of protection for journalists subpoenaed to reveal their sources. Contrary to what some administration advocates would have us believe, the legislation specifically states that the press is not protected when the case involves news about terrorist threats.

For a conservative who was elected on a platform of smaller, less intrusive government, Bush has a hypocritical attitude about matters relating to government whistle-blowers. The president says he would veto the bill because it would make it impossible for the government to learn who in its ranks is telling the press - and through the press the people - what is going on behind closed doors.

Once Bush got into office, he quickly forgot all that campaign rhetoric about smaller, less intrusive government. Instead, he has led an assault on our civil liberties unmatched even by the late President Richard Nixon. Whether it involves government prying into our records or private conversations without court oversight, the president is now a big believer in what many in the world consider police-state tactics.

Bush would have hidden many of these tactics from the public altogether, but some loyal Americans in the federal bureaucracy have come forward to speak with reporters. They've revealed the administration's abuse of our civil liberties, and that has meant a lot of bad publicity for the president.

This is how a country with a free press is supposed to work. The free and independent press informs the people about its government. Bush doesn't appreciate the need for that independent oversight and fears the ramifications of legislation that would help protect that right.

A shield law would tell this president, and his successors, that they can't drag reporters into court and threaten them with jail time simply for doing their jobs the way the framers of this great democracy envisioned. But that has been a regular tool of this administration and the U.S. attorneys it has appointed. Once someone squeals on the administration's abuses of power, the prosecutors go after the press to find the leak. In doing so, they attempt to intimidate both the leakers and the press.

The president makes a good many speeches about freedom and democracy in other countries while ignoring his own attempts to curtail it here. A solid majority of legislators in both parties are now seeing that they must protect journalists from the heavy-handedness of this administration.

A federal shield law is needed to protect the American people from those who would use the reins of power to squash dissent.