Free Flow of Information Act

Over the last few months both houses of Congress have been trying to pass a version of a Federal shield law for journalists. The Act, entitled "The for Free Flow of Information Act" would prevent a court from compelling a journalist to disclose a source of leaked information.

If signed into law, the Act would basically create a "privilege" situation similar to the attorney-client privilege and spousal privilege. This type of privilege allows parties to refuse to testify about the details of their conversations. These privileges have worked their way into our legal system because we recognize the unique nature of the attorney-client and spousal relationships. I don't think as a society we hold the relationship between a journalist and source in the same regard as that of my previous examples.

Setting aside the philosophical reasons, given the broad definition of journalist provided in the Act and the proliferation of nontraditional journalist (bloggers) in our society almost anyone could be shielded from disclosing classified or proprietary material under the Act.