King to sign shield law letter
State Attorney General Gary King will be signing a letter of support for a federal shield law for journalists this week.
If 36 state attorneys general sign on, the National Association of Attorneys General has said it will officially support the legislation at the national level, and possibly break a logjam in the U.S. Senate on S. 2035, the Free Flow of Information Act.
In response to a query from the New Mexico Independent, Phil Sisneros, King's director of communications, said King is signing on to the letter.
Two years ago this month, lack of a federal shield law was one of the reasons cited for the payout of $750,000 by five media organizations to former Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Wen Ho Lee as part of a settlement of a Privacy Act lawsuit between Lee and the federal government.
The settlement put an end to contempt citations held against the journalists for refusing to identify confidential sources used in stories about Lee, as the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reported at the time:
"In a joint statement from the news organizations, the media outlets said they agreed to the payout 'to protect our confidential sources, to protect our journalists from further sanction and possible imprisonment, and to protect our news organizations from potential exposure. We were reluctant to contribute anything to this settlement, but we sought relief in the courts and found none.
"'Given the rulings of the federal courts in Washington and the absence of a federal shield law, we decided this was the best course to protect our sources and to protect our journalists,' the statement said."
Currently, 31 states and the District of Columbia have state laws protecting reporter privilege. New Mexico is said to have a partial law, according to a Privilege Compendium by the Reporters Committee:
The New Mexico Constitution does not expressly set forth a reporter's privilege. On the other hand, New Mexico courts have ruled in other contexts that article II, § 17 of the state constitution -- which provides that "[e]very person may freely speak, write and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right," and that "no law shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press" -- is more protective of speech than is the First Amendment to the federal Constitution.
In March of this year, former USA Today reporter Toni Locy was fined $5,000 a day for protecting her sources. She was then prohibited by a judge's order from seeking financial help in paying those fines -- from her newspaper, her friends or "even her own mother," in the words of the Reporters Committee, which calls the Locy case "a prime example of why we need a federal shield law."
The Reporters Committee issued a Special Report last month on the seriousness of the issue in terms of journalists' ability to report to the public.
Editor and Publisher reports that "news organizations are pinning their hopes on congressional passage of a news-media shield bill the Bush administration opposes as a threat to national security."
The legislation being considered in the Senate offers only modest shelter for reporters wanting to protect the identity of confidential sources. In many cases, it would leave the fate of journalists — and their sources — to the discretion of judges who increasingly have been willing to jail or fine them.
Out of nine high-profile cases since 2003 where journalists were ordered to reveal information, four might have turned out differently had the proposal awaiting Senate action (S. 2035) been law.
The First Amendment Center says absence of a national shield law may well result in "a loss of vital information to the public."
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