OUR VIEW: Urge Hatch to support shield law

Sometimes confidentialty is critical to report information that you, our readers, have the right to know about. Utah already has a shield law to protect journalists and news sources from retribution from embarrassed or angry political or bureaucratic leaders. But as of yet, there has been no federal shield law protecting journalists and their sources from intimidation or even criminal charges by vindictive subjects of news articles.There is good news though. A much-needed federal shield law (S. 448) continues to make glacial but consistent progress through Congress. On Nov. 19, there were two hours of debate on S. 448 in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Free Flow of Information Act is a compromise between Congress, the Obama administration and many media organizations. After months of tough negotiations, national security concerns with the bill that the Obama administration once had, have been resolved with a compromise that still assures a free press.

On Nov. 19, Senate Judiciary Committee members had to defeat two Republican amendments designed to water down the media protections in S. 448. It was disconcerting that Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch supported these failed amendments. In fact, the only Republican to join Democrats on the committee in defeating the amendments was Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. We urge our readers to contact Sen. Hatch over the Thanksgiving congressional holiday and urge him to support S 448 when the Judiciary Committee takes it up again in early December. Sen. Hatch should make it his concern that S. 448 gets out of committee and to the full Senate floor for a vote. Media organizations, senators, and the Obama administration spent long hours hashing out a compromise that retains press freedom. To contact Sen. Hatch via the Web, go to: http://hatch.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Offices.Contact

We're passionate about a federal shield law because we want to make sure that you, our readers, get as much information as you can. The U.S. Congress has been dithering around for several years trying to get this federal shield law into place. It's time it happened sooner rather than later. We want Sen. Hatch to be a help, not a hindrance to that worthy effort.

Read S. 448 in its entirety: http://asne.org/portals/0/Publications/Public/S44811-12-09.pdf