Shield Law

This article originally appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: The Senate Judiciary Committee voted in favor of a federal "shield" law on Thursday, but still refused to include Julian Assange, Edward Snowden or citizen bloggers in the group of protected journalists.

A shield law allows a journalist to protect a confidential source unless the government can present a compelling reason, such as national security, to demand the source's name. Most states have shield laws but there is no federal law.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: President Barack Obama's public relations offensive to counter bad press about the NSA snooping on Americans and investigators snooping on reporters suffered multiple setbacks in the past week.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: Contrary to conventional wisdom, the proposed federal shield law backed by the press and President Barack Obama wouldn’t help reporters protect their sources in big national security cases, such as the recent ones involving the AP and James Rosen of Fox.  In fact, the law could make it harder for the press to protect sources in those cases.

This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon: The Justice Department has the authority to subpoena the telephone records of news reporters, legal experts say, but its secret subpoena of the records of 100 AP reporters is unprecedented in scope.