Editorial: First Amendment help

Saturday, Aug. 4, 2007 | 7:44 a.m.

The House Judiciary Committee approved a bill this week that would create a federal shield law to protect journalists from naming their sources in federal court. If the bill makes it into law it will be a big step toward better protecting the First Amendment.

A shield law is especially important when it comes to uncovering government corruption because people are more willing to talk to the media if they know that reporters cannot be forced to disclose their sources' identity.

Think of Watergate. Without the journalists being able to offer a pledge of secrecy, sources might never have told the Washington Post about what was happening in the White House.

Thirty-two states, including Nevada, have a shield law, yet Congress has allowed federal prosecutors and judges to continue to subpoena and jail journalists.

For instance, former New York Times reporter Judith Miller was sent to prison in 2005 for refusing to name a source even though she never wrote a story about the information she received. Prosecutors gained information they needed from other sources, yet she sat in prison until she agreed to testify and name names as if she were an informant. The government has enough power to prosecute alleged wrongdoing without enlisting journalists.

The bill in the House, along with a companion bill in the Senate, would force journalists to testify in some instances, such as cases of terrorism, but it would end the abhorrent abuse that prosecutors, aided by complicit judges, have committed on the First Amendment. Congress should pass the legislation.