Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin pondered the constitutional protections that are afforded bloggers, wondering in a recent media appearance whether media shield laws apply to this type of journalist.
Mr. Durbin said to Fox News host Chris Wallace that he doubted whether bloggers, or “someone who is Tweeting,” should be given media shield rights. […]
Dirty tweeters and bloggers may have body odor that offends Bill Keller, or perhaps not be masculine enough for Maureen Dowd, or, worse yet, try to report something that all the right kind of people agree shouldn’t be reported. Those awful people don’t send their children to the right schools, and they aren’t invited to the right dinner parties, so they certainly don’t deserve a shield law.
I would get disgusted about this if all this talk about shield laws were anything but the Braxton-Hicks contractions of the legislative process. They may be painful and disconcerting, but they go away after a short while, and produce nothing.
Comrade Mary
Um — metaphor?
Anyway, here’s an update for you on your favourite ferriner. Nice illustration.
The original Star story is painfully earnest in its description of how it’s trying to get anyone named at that meeting to say something.
cathyx
They’re still trying to protect the print news from the inevitable.
mistermix
@Comrade Mary: Thanks for the gawker link. They are just dirty unshielded bloggers so naturally I don’t read them.
Baud
Not surprising. Although if any shield law makes sense in today’s world, you have to come up with some limitation. Otherwise, you’re just telling people they can leak to anybody for any reason.
Comrade Mary
Oh, man. Going even more OT, has anyone seen Tom? When Alice Met David.
beltane
@Comrade Mary: If I am reading this correctly, it sounds like Alice Walker really ought to stick with her day job.
the Conster
@Comrade Mary:
Lizard people have AB negative blood so watch your back.
beltane
@the Conster: Hey, I have AB- blood. When do I get to enjoy the perks of Lizard people status? It’s been bad enough waiting for my Soros check all these years but this is really beyond the pale.
chopper
uh…
the Conster
@beltane:
That’s what all you lizard people say. We’re on to you now. I for one welcome you and your reptilian overlording.
joes527
@Baud:
ummm… No?
Shield laws protect the folks who are leaked to. They only indirectly protect leakers. Are you thinking of whistle-blower laws?
NonyNony
@joes527:
A shield law would also have to provide some protections to prevent the government from going after journalists to find their sources. So something would have to be there.
But really the way to fix this is to make it illegal for someone with clearance to leak something, and not illegal for someone without clearance to publish it. And then add whistle-blower protections to the law where if leaks are actually made in the public interest (and how we’re going to impartially determine THAT I’m not certain) then the whistle-blower can’t be prosecuted either.
I’ve been reading that repealing the Espionage Act might do a lot for the first half. I don’t know enough about it to know if that’s true or not, but if so that would be better than a “media shield” hack to protect elite journalists from prosecution while still being able to target anyone out to do real journalism.
Todd
@joes527:
If it is that important and monumental, that’s why we have the pardon power.
That was always my argument about codifying the excuses for torture – once your codify something, it becomes the institution. if you have a ticking clock on a nuclear bomb, I can see the potential for needing to get rough with questioning – thus the rough questioner better realize that the laws hes breaking are important, and that the need for the criminal act is so profound as would justify an executive pardon.
NonyNony
@Todd:
You’ve got it backwards – it should never be our policy to prosecute journalists for doing their jobs. They should not be at the whim of a president – especially a president who the leakers may be fingering for illegal actions.
It actually makes no sense at all that there’s even an expectation that journalists should keep classified material secret in this country. People with security clearances are supposed to be vetted and part of their job is to keep their goddamn mouths shut. If what they’re leaking is important for the public good, they shouldn’t be prosecuted. If what they’re leaking is like the last two “scandals” that have hit the airwaves they should be fired and probably spend some time in prison for leaking classified information in a way that jeopardizes ongoing missions without actually doing anything to advance the public good.
But the journalists involved shouldn’t even feel like they have an empty threat hanging over their heads. They can use their judgment to decide if something is newsworthy or in the public good, but why should they be prosecuted for passing on information given to them to the public? That’s their job – it isn’t actually their job to keep secrets (not matter what a few of them seem to think).
Lihtox
@Baud‘s point is that anyone can set up a blog or tweet something, so if we extend the shield law from “journalists” to “bloggers” it’s not really a “shield” law anymore, it covers everybody. Maybe that’s the best thing to do, but it’s not a trivial move.
Although that got me wondering: how is “journalist” currently defined? It would be really easy for Wikileaks or Balloon Juice or any Random Joe to publish their own very-low-circulation newspaper, put a stack of 50 outside their home or office or mail them to their relatives. Does that make the writers contained within “journalists”?
catclub
@Lihtox: ” put a stack of 50 outside their home or office or mail them to their relatives.” I bet that would be enough to qualify as a journalist, and I bet most people are too lazy to do that.
nellcote
Would email chain letters be covered as journalism?
And fuck Rosen, he specifically said in an email to Kim that he was looking to release material that would shift the politics. When journalists intentionally act as activists should they still be covered by a shield law?
different-church-lady
Considering the tidal wave of tweets today’s “journalists” send out every 15 seconds, how the hell are we supposed to tell the difference anymore?
different-church-lady
@NonyNony:
You’re right — we ought to prosecute them for failing to do their jobs.
Keith G
@joes527: So are you saying that the person Aldridge Ames “leaked to” to should be protected?
I think that Baud was on to it in a general sense. Within the limits of such a law there has to be limits on who you can give information or maybe who can receive such information. Mix seems overly sensitive on this work in progress.
lol
Fascinating stuff. Spies from other countries can simply post their findings to a wordpress blog and they’ll be immune from prosecution.
I still haven’t seen a good explanation for what exactly the Obama administration did wrong here, aside from hurting the fee-fees of some very serious self-important “journalists”.
Rosen *should* be treated as a co-conspirator. He wasn’t acting as a journalist. He encouraged a source in the state department to leak classified information so that he could, in Rosen’s own words, “force the administration’s hand to go in the right direction”.
How is that not espionage? All I’ve seen is whining that journalists are above the law.
broken
Mr. Durbin said to Fox News host Chris Wallace that he doubted whether bloggers, or “someone who is Tweeting,” should be given media shield rights.
No where in the video did I see Durbin say he doubted bloggers or tweeters should be given shield rights. Did I miss something or is this just more Right-wing BS?
Whistle-blowers, media or otherwise should be protected. Gratuitous leaks of information damaging to the country, not so much.