Intellectual Property Law

Proposed Reporters’ Shield Law Overdue but Underpowered

By Jennifer Granick

Proposed Reporters’ Shield Law Overdue but Underpowered

This week’s Circuit Court column is about the proposed federal reporters’ shield law that just came out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. While we need a shield law, this one has a loophole for situations where the leak is criminal or tortious activity, and the loophole may just be too large for this version of a shield to do the trick.

I hope that First Amendment and reporters’ rights groups will be able to address this intelligently before consensus forms around final language for the bill. Its very easy to get caught up in the “you’re protecting criminals” rhetoric, particularly when a lot of business interests have formed a coalition to kill the bill entirely. However, the current version of the bill probably would not protect reporters even in the circumstances which have led Congress to propose this legislation in the first place. Read more here.

Full post as published by The Shout on October 09, 2007 (boomark / email).