stLouISTPRESS Act gains momentum
The Senate should have passed the PRESS Act months ago, after it sailed through the House in January. But despite the delay, the bill to protect journalist-source confidentiality is picking up real momentum heading into the lame-duck session.
The New York Times ran an editorial this month endorsing the PRESS Act and explaining why protecting journalists from government surveillance isn’t just about the press: “This law would effectively protect those who serve the public interest by blowing the whistle on government wrongdoing. And it would help protect all Americans, who deserve nothing less than the full truth about the officials they elect and the government they fund.”
Whistleblowers, the Times explained, are just as likely to expose corruption by Democrats as Republicans. That’s why administrations from both parties have retaliated against them and the journalists they work with. Regardless of politics, “By protecting reporters from having to reveal their sources, the bill would ideally encourage more whistle-blowers to help shine a light on government abuses.”
Now that his hometown paper (along with other New York outlets) has endorsed the bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has said he wants it on the president’s desk this year, hopefully will make it a high priority for his year-end agenda.
It’s not just the Times. The Las Vegas Review-Journal ran its own editorial, explaining: “The legislation is ideological neutral, protecting reporters and editors regardless of their politics.” It called unsubstantiated claims that the legislation compromises national security “absurd” (and the bill has exceptions for national security emergencies anyway). “A greater danger would be to erode the very freedoms that protect American citizens from the perils of government overreach while shielding the state from scrutiny,” the Review-Journal’s editorial board wrote.
Catherine Herridge, the veteran investigative journalist who has reported for everyone from CBS News to Fox News, went on Dan Abrams’ show on NewsNation to explain that “smaller newsrooms, independent journalists cannot withstand the kind of financial and legal pressure that I have been facing for over two years.”
Herridge has been held in contempt of court for refusing to burn a source, and the judge has cited the absence of a federal “shield” law for reporters like the PRESS Act. Her case is pending on appeal.
Abrams’ father, the legendary First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, has also endorsed the act, joining over 130 signers in a coalition letter Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) organized this summer. And this month, he authored an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal highlighting the need for a federal shield law so that sources can bring important news to journalists without fear of reprisal.
In addition, the Society of Professional Journalists, which represents thousands of journalists nationwide through its dozens of chapters, launched an ambitious online advocacy campaign that includes this video from FPF Executive Director Trevor Timm, who explains that the prospect of surveillance has “chilled investigative reporting and terrified sources.”
The PRESS Act, Timm added, “takes into account the modern media landscape and would protect independent journalists,” regardless of their political leanings, including by barring the government from surveilling them indirectly via their phone and email providers.
You can help too. The ACLU, one of many major national rights organizations that support the PRESS Act, has an easy-to-use form to tell your senators to advance the bill. Or you can email the Times’ editorial directly to your senators’ offices.
And if you happen to be a journalist or editorial board member, please, write about the most important press freedom legislation in modern history.
Learn more about the PRESS Act in our video below:
WATCH: The PRESS Act is the strongest shield bill we've ever seen and is imperative for journalist-source confidentiality.
Here's why the Senate needs to pass it now. pic.twitter.com/jysrKKFofF
