Zack Whittaker reports:
Folks in America: Your senators only have a few weeks left to pass the PRESS Act, a federal “shield” bill that the House passed with unanimous, bipartisan support in January but has been waiting in the Senate for a final vote ever since.
The PRESS Act, if passed into law, would enshrine nationwide protections for journalists across the United States from forcibly having to identify or give up their confidential sources (except in emergency cases, like to prevent an act of terrorism). The bill also grants other protections, such as limiting what records the government can secretly take from journalists or their email or phone provider that could identify their sources — again, with a narrow set of exceptions for emergency threats.
Read more at TechCrunch, who notes that the ACLU has a web form if you want to send a note to your senators, or you can call or email them directly to ask them to vote for the PRESS Act.
As many of you who read my other blog (DataBreaches.net) know, I often get tips or information from sources that the government would love to identify and arrest. A strong shield law can make the difference between a journalist being able to lawfully resist government demands to reveal our sources or not. As Zack notes, there are some situations in which journalists cannot refuse, but to prevent government overreach, harassment, or vengeful prosecution of journalists, we need the PRESS Act.