Editorial: Subpoenas strike at a free press

Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2001 | 9:45 a.m.

It only now is coming to light that the U.S. Justice Department in May had secretly subpoenaed the home phone records of a reporter who had written about the FBI's investigation of U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-N.J. The subpoena came after Associated Press reporter John Solomon quoted unnamed law enforcement officials as saying that Torricelli had been recorded on a wiretap in 1996 discussing fund-raising with the relatives of a Chicago crime figure. Law enforcement officials can be prosecuted for disclosing information obtained under federal wiretaps.

According to one of the nation's top First Amendment lawyers, Floyd Abrams, it is rare for federal prosecutors to subpoena a journalist's telephone records. "I cannot say that every time the government seeks to obtain telephone records of journalists it necessarily violates the First Amendment, but there's no doubt that the decision of the government to go as far as to obtain these telephone records raises constitutional questions of a high order of delicacy," Abrams said.

A free press, acting as a watchdog, is instrumental to stop government abuses, keeping a democracy healthy. For the press to be truly independent, the government can't use reporters as agents to collect information to make their criminal cases.

If people believe that a journalist's phone records, which in this case may detail Solomon's conversations with sources, are open to government inspection, then citizens will be less willing to blow the whistle on government wrongdoing to the press. The use of the tremendous power of the federal prosecutor in this manner infringes on First Amendment protections and is not a reassuring sign that the Bush administration understands the First Amendment's value.