MarketingVOX: Last Thursday the Bush administration took shots at a congressional proposal intended to protect news gatherers, including bloggers, from revealing confidential sources, according to CNet.
According to the US Department of Justice, the latest version of the Free Flow of Information Act protects too large a segment of the population, presenting a threat to federal criminal investigations and national security at large.
Rachel Brand, assistant attorney general in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, said the draft’s “broad” new definition “really includes anyone who wants to post something to the Web.” She also noted the Act would safeguard “a terrorist operative who videotaped a message from a terrorist leader threatening attacks on Americans.”
The Bush Administration added there is currently no evidence that source-related subpoenas to reporters are on the rise.
“Reporter’s privilege” laws currently exist in 49 states and DC. None, however, shield journalists from federal prosecutors.
The proposed revision to the Free Flow of Information Act protects those engaged in the “gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public.”
Introduced to both the House and Senate, it casts a wider net of protection than earlier versions. However, those covered may still be asked to release their sources under special circumstances.
Such circumstances include those in which a crime has clearly been committed, when trade secrets, nonpublic personal information or health records are compromised in violation of laws already in place; and when national security faces “imminent and actual harm.”
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