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Lufkin Daily News — Texas senators should support shield bill

The Lufkin (Texas) Daily News
By Cox News Service
April 22, 2008

When Sen. John McCain said last week that he would vote for federal legislation to protect journalists' confidential sources, it was a welcome sign of support for a stalled proposal.

The bill t

The Lufkin (Texas) Daily News
By Cox News Service
April 22, 2008

When Sen. John McCain said last week that he would vote for federal legislation to protect journalists' confidential sources, it was a welcome sign of support for a stalled proposal.

The bill to protect the identity of whistleblowers in federal cases was approved overwhelmingly in the House and in the Senate Judiciary Committee last October. But it has been stuck since, and supporters haven't been able to get it to the floor for a vote.

Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Republican, voted for the bill in the Judiciary Committee. He also co-authored with Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy another important bill, an update of the federal Freedom of Information Act, that passed last year and was signed into law by President Bush.

A Cornyn spokesman said the shield bill, titled the Free Flow of Information Act, has been mired in a struggle over definitions, among them whether bloggers fall under the act. But those questions have been answered numerous times and the traditional test still applies: Someone who is working as a journalist, gathering information to be published or posted, would be covered under the shield bill.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the function determines who would be covered. "Technology doesn't determine who is a journalist."

Dalglish said she expects a floor vote on the legislation, designated S.2035, before the end of May; and she expects it will pass the Senate with a veto-proof margin, as it did in the House.

Some in the Bush administration, particularly the intelligence agencies and the Justice Department, don't like the bill. But Congress has vetted this bill intensely and it passes muster. Cornyn and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, shouldn't fall for scare tactics but look at the hard work already done on this bill.

This shield bill will protect whistleblowers and journalists without jeopardizing national security or hindering legitimate prosecutions. It sets restrictions on when journalists can be compelled to testify, and leaves disputes up to a federal judge.

In supporting the bill, McCain made it clear he disapproves of news reports that disclose classified information. "It is, frankly, a license to do harm, perhaps serious harm," he said of the shield bill. "But it's also a license to do good, to disclose injustice and unlawfulness and inequities and to encourage their swift correction."

McCain's approval is an important step in getting the bill to the Senate floor and approved by a bipartisan majority. When it gets there, and that should be soon, Cornyn and Hutchison should give it strong support.

Cornyn, who is in a re-election fight this year, has shown numerous times that he understands the importance of a free and unfettered press. A shield bill that protects the free flow of information is crucial to that end.

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