EDITORIAL: ‘Let the People Know the Facts’: ‘Let the People Know the Facts’

By Chicago Tribune

Oct. 22–The U.S. House on Tuesday voted resoundingly to support the right of reporters to protect their sources in federal court cases. How big was the vote? Try 398-21.

The fight for a federal shield law isn’t “about protecting reporters,” said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.). “It’s about protecting the public’s right to know. I believe the only check on government power in real time is a free and independent press.”

Pence is absolutely right. Yet Senate leaders have been non-committal about scheduling a vote on a federal shield law, and the Bush administration has been sharply critical of the bill. Let’s hope the extraordinary vote in the House forces the Senate and White House to reconsider.

The White House said in a statement Tuesday that the proposed law is too broad and “could severely frustrate, and in some cases completely eviscerate, the federal government’s ability to investigate acts of terrorism and other threats to national security.”

Really? This is a carefully crafted law, one that hardly gives blanket protection to reporters. It’s largely in keeping with the Justice Department’s own guidelines, which state that “the prosecutorial power of the government should not be used in such a way that it impairs a reporter’s responsibility to cover as broadly as possible controversial public policy issues.”

The proposed law should not be troubling to the Bush administration. But the administration’s opposition should be troubling to the public.

The promise of confidentiality can be critical in uncovering information that informs the public, but which the government might wish to keep secret. Confidentiality was critical in recent revelations of clandestine CIA prisons, the appalling treatment of veterans at Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the uncovering of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison. (That might explain some of the administration’s criticism.)

This is a good bill. It would not compromise national security. It would help to assure the free flow of information to the American people. We urge the Senate to act as decisively as the House has. And we urge President Bush to heed the wise counsel of a predecessor, Abraham Lincoln, who said, “Let the people know the facts and the country will be safe.”

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