So would this law extend to wiretapping private citizens phones, bugging their vehicles, computers and homes? How far protecting them until it intrudes on Joe Citizen?
Most MSM sources work inside the White House and are named Mohammed.
I can understand why they need to be ‘shielded.’
In the middle east this is called Taqqiya.
Then I clicked on the link and read this section.
The bill's protections would apply to a "covered journalist," defined as an employee, independent contractor or agent of an entity that disseminates news or information. The individual would have to have been employed for one year within the last 20 or three months within the last five years.
It would apply to student journalists or someone with a considerable amount of freelance work in the last five years. A federal judge also would have the discretion to declare an individual a "covered journalist" who would be granted the privileges of the law...
While the definition covers traditional and online media, it draws the line at posts on Twitter, blogs or other social media websites by non-journalists.
It codifies protection for the mainstream media journalists (95% of whom are de facto agents of the Democratic Party) and specifically excludes online outlets who are not necessarily willing mouthpieces for the state.
I really hate the assumption that absent legislation to the contrary, the fedguv has power and jurisdiction over everything.
The approach is from the wrong direction, because it creates the appearance that right are dispensed, or not, from the government. It is doubly damned, because it effectively means that journalists have rights that ordinary citizens do not, and the definition of journalist is also to be dispensed by the government.
Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the “Pentagon Papers”, should have spent the next 20 years or so in a federal penitentiary. NOT because of the content of the papers, but because he broke the law in releasing classified information. He should have suffered the same consequences as if he sold them to a foreign government.
Likewise, journalist who published them, knowing full well they were classified documents, should have no free speech protections.
Ok, Define “media”. Will the shield protect anyone who publishes slander and attributes it to an unnamed third party? The Republicans lack the nerve to challenge these folks anyway. This is one hell of a can of worms.
While the first amendment protects freedom of the press, “there is no first amendment right for gathering information,” Schumer said at The New York Times’ Sources and Secrets Conference on the press, government and national security.
While the definition covers traditional and online media, it draws the line at posts on Twitter, blogs or other social media websites by non-journalists.
If the law can define 'journalists' then sites like this - maybe even Drudge - won't be able to operate. Newspapers have worked to define 'first amendment' rights that we've all be able to use. If that's taken away it would be the equivalent of the second amendment being defined as only applicable to the military or State militia.
This is a big police state move...
bump to the top