03/21/08 - Opinion - Congress should pass a federal shield law and guarantee protections for a journalist's sources

Protection of news sources is vital

The Constitution ought to be enough. The guarantee of a free press enumerated in the Bill of Rights should be sufficient to protect journalists from government interference. Too often, it's not.

Congress has the power to pass a federal shield law that would increase protections for reporters. In the face of an increasingly hostile judicial climate, it's the right move. A free press is too important to this country to take lightly.

Confidentiality is often a necessity for potential whistleblowers. If a person's anonymity will not be protected, putting jobs and livelihoods at stake, there is little incentive for people with valuable information to come forward. When insiders with knowledge of malfeasance -- corporate, government or otherwise -- want to tell their stories, they must be promised protections. When the government chips away at those protections, the nation suffers. Imprisoning journalists for failing to disclose sources, forcing such reporters to pay contempt fees in an effort to bankrupt them into speaking -- these are actions that undermine a free press.....

Via Greenwich Time

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"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
	Eric Arthur Blair or George ORWELL British novelist and essayist (1903-1950)