Earlier this month, BRAD BLOG’s D.C. Correspondent, Margie Burns, sat in on Senate Judiciary Committee hearings concerning a federal “reporter’s shield law,” ostensibly meant as a way to offer protection for the sources of journalists, while defining exceptions for national security issues. As the bill was voted out of committee she posed some interesting concerns here about it.
Yesterday, Burns wrote at her own site, the House passed their own version of the GOP-introduced, MSM-supported law, but she notes there’s a small — yet very important — difference in the House bill’s definition of “covered person”…
“(2) COVERED PERSON- The term ‘covered person’ means a person who regularly gathers, prepares, collects, photographs, records, writes, edits, reports, or publishes news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public for a substantial portion of the person’s livelihood or for substantial financial gain and includes a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such covered person.”
The Senate version reads,
“(2) COVERED PERSON- The term ‘covered person’ means a person who is engaged in journalism and includes a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, or affiliate of such person.”
Well, that’s an important difference, indeed. One that could substantially effect bloggers, such as ourselves, and certainly those on blogs both smaller and larger (e.g., even the huge Huffington Post, where bloggers are not paid). Under the law, if the compromise version of both houses is passed using the House definition, it could potentially mean that we would not be “covered person” and thus not protected from being required by law to disclose our sources.
Such a statue could be a devastating blow to the ability of folks like us, not on a regular salaried contract with a major metropolitan newspapers or broadcast network, to guarantee privacy to our sources. Many of the stories that The BRAD BLOG has broken and reported over the years simply could not have existed without such promises to insider and whistleblower sources.
Burns goes on to bullet-point a list of those she feels would and wouldn’t be covered by the definition of “covered person” in the House version of the bill, including most bloggers as she sees it.
“In other words,” she charges, “a ‘covered person’ is basically anyone Bob Novak could tolerate, and not covered is everyone who might hypothetically or even accidentally be perceived as a threat to the Novaks of this world. What could be sweeter? — for Robert Novak.”
UPDATE: Nate Anderson at ars technica offers additional thoughts.
So… our much-beloved congresscavers are again avidly seeking the monetary blessings that come from corporate capitulation…
Oh baloney. I don’t care what these anti-constitutionalist think. I hope they keep going until they trigger the coming civil war to defend our constitutional rights. I have the right to my opinion and I will continue to express it anywhere, and anytime I feel the urge. Not only is it my CONSTITUTIONAL right, but my religious one. Blink them. Have a great day.
What impact will this have if “Journalists” (whatever your definition is) lie? Do they loose their status if they screw up?
Way to squash the first amendment even further.
You protect some people, but not others. Who decides? The decider? Do you have to be “for profit” to be professional? Yet many professionals are no better than people who post information freely, in fact sometimes they are worse. Is this not fascism? Is this not a form of censorship? Is this not unconstitutional, and at the bare minimum just plain wrong?
At this rate, we can have the police department do background checks on everyone, then feed the result of that to the appropriate three letter agency, then filter from that who is a journalist and deserves a press pass, then deny access to those that don’t tow the current administration’s path.
Sounds like no protection for anyone to me. (at the whim of the current administration, or some unknown secret agency) But then I didn’t bother reading deep into the story because it just plain pisses me off in the first few paragraphs.
Isn’t there something better for the house and senate to do right now besides whacking the hell out of our rights more.
Is it possible for someone to be part time, non profit, or for profit, zero budget, or big budget, journalist–while simultaneously writing fiction, or propaganda, or lies?
It seems to me it leaves bradblog.com, cryptome.org and such out on a thin branch with anyone with some power holding the loppers just waiting for the right keyword.
Shouldn’t it be about time for those subpoenas on all those corrupt bastards to have come back by now? No? They need more time to delay? To fuck more things up?
Seems easier to just spread information anonymously. But then there goes the profit.
In hindsight, whatever the outcome, I see one way that already could have protected journalists.
That is, if you work for government, don’t break your oath.
And if they do break their oath, much severe punishment.
Na, that’s to logical, they got to take a paper shredder to the constitution instead.
Alright, that’s it, I’m done pissing.
Wait wait, one more thought.
With no warrant needed to wiretap, unless you have carrier pigeons, seems there’s no anonymity. I guess you could risk WIFI + TOR at 60 MPH.
Ohhhh Brad you’re going to have to get rid of those “Front Men” now for sure. 🙂
… GWN said…
“Ohhhh Brad you’re going to have to get rid of those “Front Men” now for sure. :-)”
Nah… Brad just needs to pay us at corporate rates, is all…
Maybe I’m dense, but why does the word “parent” appear in this bill?
… MarkH asked…
“Maybe I’m dense, but why does the word “parent” appear in this bill?”
You’ve not been paying attention to the omniescent zapkitty’s subtle exposition of carefully nuanced context… so let’s try it again … THIS FUCKED-UP ADDITION TO THE TEXT OF THE HOUSE BILL WAS BOUGHT AND PAID FOR BY THE CORPORATE MEDIA. Their slime trail is all over the wording.
The answer as to the questions of “Why money?” and “Why ‘parent'” is left as an exercise for the students as the students are now suitably informed as to the corporate background of the phraseology 🙂
Come to think of it… leaving snarkiness aside…
… (diffilcult, but I’ll try 🙂 )…
…just who was it on the Senate committee that had the foresight to yank the worst of the corporate boilerplate?
you shitheads do not “report” anything, you just gather what is already out there and post it here. Quit acting like you are doing something original and go get real jobs. You don’t have “sources”(some pissed off ranter on some other obscure site does not count). What you have is too much time on your hands because none of you do any actual work for a living. Quick poll, how many of you retards are on public assistance? Of course, considering that there are only a few of you, it doesn’t really matter because NO ONE GIVES A DAMN WHAT YOU THINK!!!!!!!!!! You can piss and moan all you want about loss of freedom or whatever the “gripe of the day is”, but apparently you are all free enough to spend hours on this bitch-board to put your two cents in(actually only .05 cents after being adjusted for inflation). You represent like you have a “Washington correspondent” when what you have is a bored housewife in D.C. who has nothing better to do than go to endless, useless committee meetings while her husband( probably a lobbyist- is there anything else in D.C.) is at work MAKING MONEY. This shameless self-promoter of a hack blogger “Brad” expects the 12 readers of this blog to “donate” money so that he can “continue the struggle against THE MAN” while seemingly relishing in his travels, on other’s dime, to appear on similarly no-name radio and TV shows. The reason that Air America is a complete and total failure is that NOBODY listens to it. It seems that “conservative” radio has no trouble attracting listeners and making money, so why can’t liberal radio do the same; especially when you claim that most people agree with you. Why is it that you have to pay the stations to be aired when every other radio program is the exact opposite. Could it be that there are only a few of you huddles under rocks(monitors) afraid to come out because of your fear that you will be exposed for what you are –kook fringe with no real support or impact on the world.
Who do you expect to turn this country around? A bunch of pansies who cannot do anything except hurl insults and bile. When you speak of organizing a movement to “take back the power”, do you not realize that most of your kind are too busy trying to relive your parents version of the sixties.
Yes corporations are the new rulers of the world, but the simple fact that you post on this sie proves that each of you support the corporations that make your computer, provide the electricity you use, make the products used to build your house, etc.
Global warming is B.S. and most of you, deep down, know it. Try and prove that “theory”– I dare you, there is no way that it can be proven, ever.
Anyway, I’m tired and my fingers hurt, so goodbye. If any of you have the guts to debate any of what I have written, my email address is chico0957@msn.com – I await all challengers – don’t really expect any as none of you have the stones.
p.s. I almost forgot- Bushit, Fascist, Halliburton, CMSM, repuglicans, Nazi, voter fraud–did I use the required number of buzz words to be allowed to post here?
It’s like a ghost of an echo from some .edu’s Free-Net archive… or maybe it was a spooled post for Q-Link that’s been on hold for decades in a college freshman’s C64 in an ancient log cabin back in the woods…
I would just like to congratulate Nonbeliever (#11) on exercising his right to free speech, with another congrats to Brad for exercising his right to free speech, and for hosting a TRULY open forum that allows lil’ chico “to spend hours on this bitch-board” (as he apparently has, an odd choice when it clearly upsets him so).
His post is troll bait and completely fact-free. Thanks for the “offer”, but I don’t waste my time on “debating” idiots. You might want to consider some anger management classes.
But thanks for sharing!
BTW, Punctuation and paragraph breaks can be your friend. Try using them!