Nothing at all surprising about it
Congress is likely to consider a federal shield law for journalists next year. Republican Senator Richard Lugar and Republican Representative Mike Pence plan to introduce such legislation, according to the Wall Street Journal. A shield law would limit the government’s power to require reporters to reveal confidential sources. Does it seem odd that Republicans would be involved in this? Consider:
“We’re suggesting there’s been a tear in the First Amendment right now, and it’s widening,” Mr. Pence said. “The only way you patch it is to do as many states have done and pass a federal statute that clarifies the boundaries.”
Mr. Pence said that some were surprised to see him and other conservatives championing a press-freedom bill. “It’s one of those things that’s a little counterintuitive for a cheerful right-winger to be involved in,” he said, but “I really do believe that the framers of the Constitution put a free and independent press in the First Amendment to protect the public’s right to know, and the only way you do that is protect reporters’ ability to keep certain sources confidential.”
There’s nothing at all surprising about conservatives protecting the First Amendment any more than protecting the Second Amendment or the rest of the Bill of Rights. I would argue that “conservatives” who find the civil rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights annoying are not conservatives at all. Nor are they liberals–capital L or otherwise. They are something else (un-American) altogether. (We all may certainly disagree about specifics.)
But I don’t think a shield law is a good idea unless it is grounded in the idea that journalists have First Amendment rights as citizens, not as journalists. That word “press” in the First Amendment refers to a machine, not a profession or a business (neither of which existed as we understand them at the time of the Constitutional Convention). We have the right to use that machine and, by extension, other machines to produce and disseminate civic discourse.
We all have legitimate complaints about how the (multiple and complex) press does its job. But I’d hope the majority of us agree that a right to produce and disseminate information (and news, and opinion, and pure drivel) is vital to our survival as a free people.
Agreed.
Of course when you codify things you ensure that the interpretation of what is valid and what is not valid is crafted from a conservative view and not from some left-wing court ha ha
I’m with you, Prof. Cline — I’d go along with this law only if it protected anyone practicting the *act* of journalism, rather than just those who work for pro journalism operations.
(And how would I define that act? The gathering of information with intent to distribute it to the public for the benefit of that public, and/or that distribution.)
Looks like it isn’t only journalists who are being targeted.
What do you think about Pelosi’s bill?
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=18510