House Passes Bill Shielding Reporters

The Associated Press

Wednesday 17 October 2007

Washington - The House on Tuesday strongly backed the right of reporters to protect the confidentiality of sources in most federal court cases, saying that right was crucial to a free and effective press. The White House threatened a veto, saying the bill would encourage leaks of classified information.

Under legislation that passed by 398 to 21, reporters could still be compelled to disclose information on sources if that information was needed to prevent acts of terrorism or harm to national security.

That was not enough for the White House, which said the privileges given to reporters "could severely frustrate - and in some cases completely eviscerate - the ability to investigate acts of terrorism or threats to national security."

Press freedom advocates have pushed the issue this year after several prominent cases involving journalists who were asked to identify sources, including subpoenas issued for reporters to testify in an inquiry into the leak of the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative.

Supporters of the bill, including more than 50 news organizations, among them The New York Times Company, pointed to news reports on Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, clandestine C.I.A. prisons and shoddy conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as examples where source confidentiality was crucial.

Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, a conservative who sponsored the bill with Representative Rick Boucher, Democrat of Virginia, said he promoted it because "I believe the only check on government power in real time is a free and independent press." The bill, Mr. Pence said, "is not about protecting reporters; it's about protecting the public's right to know."

A similar bill, sponsored by Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee this month, but it is uncertain if the full Senate will take it up in the final legislative weeks of this year.

Supporters of the House bill said it was designed to strike a balance between the need to protect a reporter's sources and the need for courts to see critical pieces of information.

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