Time for Action   

Online Exclusive » Congress needs to complete action on a shield law for journalists—now.

It's time for Congress to stop dithering and pass a shield law enshrining the right of journalists to protect the identity of confidential sources.

The desperate need for such legislation has been obvious for some time, particularly since the Judy Miller Era. A series of decisions has made it crystal clear that when prosecutors or civil litigants go after the identities of unnamed sources, the federal courts offer no protection.

But the urgency of the situation is underscored by the Toni Locy case.

Locy is the former USA Today reporter whose sources are being sought by lawyers for former Army scientist Steven J. Hatfill, who was named by government officials as a "person of interest" – whatever that is – but never charged in connection with the anthrax attacks after 9/11. Locy quite properly has refused to give them up.

Enter U.S. District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton, who found Locy in contempt of court and ordered her to pay a crushing sequence of fines, starting at $500 a day and rapidly escalating to $5,000 a day. And here's the cherry on top: The judge said that no one could help her pay the fines. Not her former newspaper, for whom she was working when she wrote the stories; not its parent, Gannett, the nation's largest newspaper company; not her family and friends; not outraged First Amendment advocates. Nobody.

Locy is now a professor at West Virginia University. Her $75,000-a-year salary will run out pretty quickly if Walton's order stands. Fortunately, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay Tuesday while Locy appeals the contempt ruling.

Orders like Walton's are often described as "draconian," in honor of one Draco, an "Athenian lawgiver," according to Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, known for his severe code of laws. By the time this saga ends, the word "Waltonian" might be a synonym.

The House overwhelmingly passed shield legislation last year, and the Senate Judiciary Committee sent its version to the floor in October. Then things ground to a halt. Last week, spurred by Locy's plight, the bill's Senate sponsors asked Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) to bring it to the floor immediately. A media coalition weighed in with a similar request Tuesday. But on Tuesday night, a Reid spokesman told AJR that Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) had placed a hold on the bill.

This is no time for arcane congressional mumbo-jumbo. It's past time for taking care of business. Forty-nine states and the District of Columbia either have some type of shield law or another form of protection for journalists. The federal government must step up.

Let's be clear about one thing: This isn't about special treatment for journalists. It's about allowing them to do their jobs, their jobs as the representatives of the people. The role of the reporter in a democracy is to hold government accountable. To do that sometimes requires using sources who don't want to go public, often for very good reasons. They may be whistleblowers who would put their jobs, and in some cases their lives, at risk if they went on the record.

There is much gnashing of teeth these days about the overuse of anonymous sources, and with good reason. They are used far too often; there should be no place for the anonymous cheap shot.

But in some important instances – in dealing with wrongdoing by government officials or unscrupulous companies, for example – they have a legitimate role to play. Many stories squarely in the public interest would be impossible without them.

To threaten a reporter with bankruptcy for keeping her word is just plain wrong.

Let's enact that shield law--now.