Shield law to expand, include bloggers

A deal between the Obama administration, the U.S. Senate, and various news organizations would strengthen and expand the current "Shield Law"

The current shield law was created to protect journalists from having to turn over their sources to law enforcement officials. Under the enhancement deal, which was made public yesterday, federal judges could, if they felt it necessary; quash subpoenas demanding testimony or information from reporters should the judges determine that the public interest outweighed the need to uncover the source of a leak. One improvement would be that this new shield law would include possible classified leaked information. The new iteration would also expand the shield law to include unpaid bloggers, lending a level of legitimacy to the online news gathering population they have long sought. A version of the new shield law was approved by the House in March, but stalled in the Senate in September after intelligence gathering agencies express dismay to the White House. At one point it was though unlikely that this new brand of shield law would ever be adopted. However with this deal, the White House has softened its stance. “We expect this proposal to move forward with bipartisan support, and the president looks forward to signing it into law.” Ben LeBolt, a White House spokesman told the New York Times, Lebolt also noted that the Obama administration was “the first administration in history to support media shield legislation. The leading proponents of the legislation, Senators Chuck Schumer and newest Democrat Arlen Specter of expressed confidence that the compromise would move quickly through the Senate. “We still get most of our information from investigative journalists,” Specter told the times, “If you can’t protect sources, there is a lot of public corruption and private malfeasance that will go undetected and unpunished.”