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36–019 PDF 2007

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION ACT OF 2007

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

ON

H.R. 2102

JUNE 14, 2007

Serial No. 110–30

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://judiciary.house.gov 

(II)

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY 

JOHN CONYERS, JR., Michigan, Chairman 

HOWARD L. BERMAN, California 

RICK BOUCHER, Virginia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts 

ROBERT WEXLER, Florida 

LINDA T. SA ́ NCHEZ, California 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

HANK JOHNSON, Georgia 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin 

ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York 

ADAM B. SCHIFF, California 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota 

LAMAR SMITH, Texas 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina 

ELTON GALLEGLY, California 

BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

DANIEL E. LUNGREN, California 

CHRIS CANNON, Utah 

RIC KELLER, Florida 

DARRELL ISSA, California 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

STEVE KING, Iowa 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

TRENT FRANKS, Arizona 

LOUIE GOHMERT, Texas 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio

PERRY APELBAUM, Staff Director and Chief Counsel 

JOSEPH GIBSON, Minority Chief Counsel 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

JUNE 14, 2007

Page 

THE BILL 

H.R. 2102, the ‘‘Free Flow of Information Act of 2007’’ ........................................ 2

OPENING STATEMENT 

The Honorable John Conyers, Jr., a Representative in Congress from the 

State of Michigan, and Chairman, Committee on the Judiciary ..................... 1

The Honorable Lamar Smith, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Texas, and Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......................... 9

The Honorable Rick Boucher, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Virginia, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary .................................... 11

The Honorable Mike Pence, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Indiana, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ..................................... 12

The Honorable Darrell Issa, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of California, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ................................. 15

The Honorable Steve Cohen, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Tennessee, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ................................. 16

The Honorable F. James Sensenbrenner, Jr., a Representative in Congress 

from the State of Wisconsin, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ........ 16

The Honorable Howard Coble, a Representative in Congress from the State 

of North Carolina, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......................... 17

WITNESSES 

Ms. Rachel Brand, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Policy, 

U.S. Department of Justice 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 18

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 20

Mr. William Safire, Chairman, The Dana Foundation 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 29

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 31

Mr. Lee Levine, Levin Sullivan Koch & Schulz 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 32

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 35

Mr. Randall Eliason, Professor, George Washington University Law School 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 52

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 54

Mr. Jim Taricani, Investigative Reporter, WJAR/NBC10 Providence, New 

Bedford, RI 

Oral Testimony ..................................................................................................... 63

Prepared Statement ............................................................................................. 65

APPENDIX 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

Prepared Statement of the Honorable Steve Cohen, a Representative in Congress from the State of Tennessee, and Member, Committee on the Judiciary ......................................................................................................................... 99

Page

IV

Letter from the American Beverage Association, the Association for Competitive Technology, the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, the National Association of Manufacturers, and the Rubber Manufacturers Association, dated June 14, 2007, to Chairman Conyers and Ranking Member 

Smith ..................................................................................................................... 100

Prepared Statement of the National Association of Broadcasters ....................... 101

Letter from Denis A. Cardman, Acting Director, American Bar Association, 

dated June 13, 2007, to Chairman Conyers ....................................................... 105

(1)

FREE FLOW OF INFORMATION ACT OF 2007

THURSDAY, JUNE 14, 2007

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, 

Washington, DC.

The Committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:06 a.m., in Room 

2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Honorable John Conyers, 

Jr. (Chairman of the Committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Conyers, Berman, Boucher, Scott, 

Lofgren, Jackson Lee, Delahunt, Cohen, Johnson, Sherman, 

Ellison, Smith, Sensenbrenner, Coble, Keller, Issa, Pence, Franks, 

and Jordan. 

Staff present: Stacey Dansky, Majority Counsel; Blaine Merritt, 

Minority Counsel; and Matt Morgan, Staff Assistant. 

Mr. CONYERS. The Committee will come to order. Good morning. 

Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess, if 

necessary. 

This is quite an unusual cause that brings us together in the 

Committee on the Judiciary today. We consider the import of the 

Nation’s core liberties: freedom of the press and the right of reporters to maintain confidential sources. 

So the first question that comes to my mind is, could we have 

freedom of the press if reporters aren’t allowed to maintain confidential sources, and what are the implications of which way we 

go? 

So to my colleagues, Rick Boucher, and my friend, Mr. Pence, the 

legislation they put together has been very important to me. 

[The bill, H.R. 2102, follows:]

2

1

I 

110TH CONGRESS 

1ST SESSION H. R. 2102

To maintain the free flow of information to the public by providing conditions 

for the federally compelled disclosure of information by certain persons 

connected with the news media. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MAY 2, 2007

Mr. BOUCHER (for himself, Mr. PENCE, Mr. CONYERS, Mr. COBLE, Mr. 

YARMUTH, and Mr. WALDEN of Oregon) introduced the following bill; 

which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary 

A BILL

To maintain the free flow of information to the public by 

providing conditions for the federally compelled disclosure 

of information by certain persons connected with the 

news media.

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Free Flow of Informa5 tion Act of 2007’’. 


HR2102.AAB
3

2

•HR 2102 IH

1 SEC. 2. COMPELLED DISCLOSURE FROM COVERED PER2 SONS. 

3 (a) CONDITIONS FOR COMPELLED DISCLOSURE.—In 

4 any proceeding or in connection with any issue arising 

5 under Federal law, a Federal entity may not compel a cov6 ered person to provide testimony or produce any document 

7 related to information possessed by such covered person 

8 as part of engaging in journalism, unless a court deter9 mines by a preponderance of the evidence, after providing 

10 notice and an opportunity to be heard to such covered per11 son—

12 (1) that the party seeking to compel production 

13 of such testimony or document has exhausted all 

14 reasonable alternative sources (other than a covered 

15 person) of the testimony or document; 

16 (2) that—

17 (A) in a criminal investigation or prosecu18 tion, based on information obtained from a per19 son other than the covered person—

20 (i) there are reasonable grounds to be21 lieve that a crime has occurred; and 

22 (ii) the testimony or document sought 

23 is essential to the investigation or prosecu24 tion or to the defense against the prosecu25 tion; or 


HR2102.AAC
4

3

•HR 2102 IH

1 (B) in a matter other than a criminal in2 vestigation or prosecution, based on information 

3 obtained from a person other than the covered 

4 person, the testimony or document sought is es5 sential to the successful completion of the mat6 ter; 

7 (3) in the case that the testimony or document 

8 sought could reveal the identity of a source of infor9 mation or include any information that could reason10 ably be expected to lead to the discovery of the iden11 tity of such a source, that—

12 (A) disclosure of the identity of such a 

13 source is necessary to prevent imminent and ac14 tual harm to national security with the objective 

15 to prevent such harm; 

16 (B) disclosure of the identity of such a 

17 source is necessary to prevent imminent death 

18 or significant bodily harm with the objective to 

19 prevent such death or harm, respectively; or 

20 (C) disclosure of the identity of such a 

21 source is necessary to identify a person who has 

22 disclosed—

23 (i) a trade secret of significant value 

24 in violation of a State or Federal law; 


HR2102.AAD
5

4

•HR 2102 IH

1 (ii) individually identifiable health in2 formation, as such term is defined in sec3 tion 1171(6) of the Social Security Act (42 

4 U.S.C. 1320d(6)), in violation of Federal 

5 law; or 

6 (iii) nonpublic personal information, 

7 as such term is defined in section 509(4) 

8 of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (15 U.S.C. 

9 6809(4)), of any consumer in violation of 

10 Federal law; and 

11 (4) that nondisclosure of the information would 

12 be contrary to the public interest, taking into ac13 count both the public interest in compelling disclo14 sure and the public interest in gathering news and 

15 maintaining the free flow of information. 

16 (b) LIMITATIONS ON CONTENT OF INFORMATION.—

17 The content of any testimony or document that is com18 pelled under subsection (a) shall, to the extent possible—

19 (1) be limited to the purpose of verifying pub20 lished information or describing any surrounding cir21 cumstances relevant to the accuracy of such pub22 lished information; and 

23 (2) be narrowly tailored in subject matter and 

24 period of time covered so as to avoid compelling proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:42 Sep 05, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\061407\36019.000 HJUD1 PsN: 36019

HR2102.AAE
6

5

•HR 2102 IH

1 duction of peripheral, nonessential, or speculative in2 formation. 

3 SEC. 3. COMPELLED DISCLOSURE FROM COMMUNICATIONS 

4 SERVICE PROVIDERS. 

5 (a) CONDITIONS FOR COMPELLED DISCLOSURE.—

6 With respect to testimony or any document consisting of 

7 any record, information, or other communication that re8 lates to a business transaction between a communications 

9 service provider and a covered person, section 2 shall apply 

10 to such testimony or document if sought from the commu11 nications service provider in the same manner that such 

12 section applies to any testimony or document sought from 

13 a covered person. 

14 (b) NOTICE AND OPPORTUNITY PROVIDED TO COV15 ERED PERSONS.—A court may compel the testimony or 

16 disclosure of a document under this section only after the 

17 party seeking such a document provides the covered per18 son who is a party to the business transaction described 

19 in subsection (a)—

20 (1) notice of the subpoena or other compulsory 

21 request for such testimony or disclosure from the 

22 communications service provider not later than the 

23 time at which such subpoena or request is issued to 

24 the communications service provider; and 


HR2102.AAF
7

6

•HR 2102 IH

1 (2) an opportunity to be heard before the court 

2 before the time at which the testimony or disclosure 

3 is compelled. 

4 (c) EXCEPTION TO NOTICE REQUIREMENT.—Notice 

5 under subsection (b)(1) may be delayed only if the court 

6 involved determines by clear and convincing evidence that 

7 such notice would pose a substantial threat to the integrity 

8 of a criminal investigation. 

9 SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS. 

10 In this Act: 

11 (1) COMMUNICATIONS SERVICE PROVIDER.—

12 The term ‘‘communications service provider’’—

13 (A) means any person that transmits infor14 mation of the customer’s choosing by electronic 

15 means; and 

16 (B) includes a telecommunications carrier, 

17 an information service provider, an interactive 

18 computer service provider, and an information 

19 content provider (as such terms are defined in 

20 sections 3 and 230 of the Communications Act 

21 of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 153, 230)). 

22 (2) COVERED PERSON.—The term ‘‘covered 

23 person’’ means a person engaged in journalism and 

24 includes a supervisor, employer, parent, subsidiary, 

25 or affiliate of such covered person. 


HR2102.AAG
8

7

•HR 2102 IH

1 (3) DOCUMENT.—The term ‘‘document’’ means 

2 writings, recordings, and photographs, as those 

3 terms are defined by Federal Rule of Evidence 1001 

4 (28 U.S.C. App.). 

5 (4) FEDERAL ENTITY.—The term ‘‘Federal en6 tity’’ means an entity or employee of the judicial or 

7 executive branch or an administrative agency of the 

8 Federal Government with the power to issue a sub9 poena or issue other compulsory process. 

10 (5) JOURNALISM.—The term ‘‘journalism’’ 

11 means the gathering, preparing, collecting, 

12 photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, 

13 or publishing of news or information that concerns 

14 local, national, or international events or other mat15 ters of public interest for dissemination to the pub16 lic.

Æ


HR2102.AAH
9

Mr. CONYERS. Freedom of the press is the cornerstone of our democracy. Without it, we can’t have a well-informed electorate and 

a Government that truly represents the will of the people. And so 

this cornerstone is, to me, very carefully, very deliberately under 

siege today. 

And there are a lot of reasons: an increasingly consolidated and 

corporate media. And I am in a funny position today, because, as 

a friend of the media, I know what the state of the media really 

is. It is corporatized and intimidation of the press by those in 

power and a lot of other little shaping of ideas and attitudes and 

positions of our Government. And the treatment of journalists as 

people to be utilized and used as they think necessary is really 

under reexamination. 

Just now, the name of William Randolph Hearst comes to mind, 

a media person who could start a war and did. 

So I hope this hearing will raise three discussions, and I know 

everyone is not in agreement with what I am saying, but that is 

what freedom of the press is about. 

Why is it that a shield law will definitely not impede legitimate 

law enforcement efforts, and what are the appropriate safeguards 

to be put on shield legislation? Why is a shield law necessary? Why 

will it not impede legitimate enforcement efforts? And what are the 

safeguards we want to consider? 

I have a lot to say about that and I think I will be able to do 

it without taking any more time. 

So I am happy to recognize the Ranking Member of the House 

Judiciary Committee, the gentleman from Texas, Lamar Smith. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, in our democracy, the press is guaranteed their 

freedom by the first amendment to the Constitution. As Thomas 

Jefferson once said, ‘‘The only security of all is in a free press.’’

Our Nation would be much poorer if we did not allow a forum 

where wrongdoing could be exposed and minority opinions could be 

expressed without fear of Government interference or retribution. 

However, our Nation also cannot exist if we do not have the ability 

to protect certain confidential information. 

Often, information related to our national security, a defendant’s 

criminal case, or a company’s trade secrets or personal customer information should remain confidential. And while H.R. 2102 does a 

better job than last year’s bill of addressing these concerns, the legislation still has its critics. 

Some in the private sector and, also, law enforcement officials believe it diminishes legal rights, public safety and national security. 

The hearing today will shed some light on the many issues we 

must face when deciding whether to create a new Federal privilege 

for reporters. One matter we must address is whether Congress 

should legislate in an area that has been the traditional domain of 

common law and the courts. 

In addition, how do we draft a law that defines a real journalist? 

Traditional print media has been joined by blogs, podcasts, instant 

messages and online newspapers. They bring us the news on demand anywhere in the world. Also, the Federal Government defends our national security. 

Pardon me, I skipped a sentence here. 

10

Bloggers are playing a larger role in news-gathering, and any 

legislation we consider should look at them as an emerging news 

source. But are they really in the category of journalists? 

It is also important to remember that, for better or for worse, 

Congress creates legislation that paints with a broad brush. Legislation giving protections to the press would not only extend to wellrespected publications but also to tabloids that thrive on gossip and 

misinformation. 

We must ensure that whistleblowers can expose crimes, waste 

and wrongdoing, but we should not create a loophole so broad that 

it becomes a tool for those who would purposely destroy people’s 

reputations, businesses and privacy. 

Also, the Federal Government defends our national security. So 

in the Federal realm, we must weigh the benefits of a reported 

privilege with the problems it may cause for those who protect our 

country. 

Finally, Mr. Chairman, I urge the Committee to remain openminded about the bill’s text. My home state of Texas was recently 

confronted with the same task before us today: how to draft a 

shield bill that appropriately addresses the needs of reporters, businesses, law enforcement authorities and the general public. 

The Texas legislature considered a statute that accommodated 

all these diverse parties, and I am relieved that H.R. 2102 incorporates some of the same ideas. These include qualifying the privilege, ensuring the bill does not override protections for medical and 

financial records as well as trade secrets, creating a balancing test 

to weigh the interests of all parties, and changing the burden of 

proof. 

I hope the primary sponsors of H.R. 2102, both Mr. Boucher and 

Mr. Pence, with whom I have spoken, are willing to consider further modifications along the way. 

Mr. Chairman, before I yield back the balance of my time, let me 

make a confession both to our colleagues and to perhaps our witnesses, as well, and that is that for many, many years, at least I 

considered myself a reporter. I was editor of the newspaper in high 

school and in law school. 

And in law school, I actually wrote an article for the Texas Bar 

Journal that was called, ‘‘Politicians Versus the Press: Libel in 

Texas.’’ And I further confess that I came down on the side of the 

press, not the politicians. 

So I sort of have a longstanding interest in this subject. And, in 

fact, for 2 years after college, I worked as a reporter for a newspaper, as well. So I have certain sympathies, shall we say, but the 

sympathies are somewhat qualified, as I feel that our privilege that 

we are discussing today should be, as well. 

Mr. Chairman, I will yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. CONYERS. What a confession. We have got to watch you more 

carefully on this bill than any that we have ever worked on before. 

Some of your past is now coming out. [Laughter.] 

Rick Boucher, Virginia, not always progressive, but a heck of a 

great guy to work with when we are on the same page. I am so 

proud that he is a sponsor of this legislation. And I am happy to 

recognize him now. 

11

Mr. BOUCHER. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, I 

think. [Laughter.] 

I appreciate your holding today’s hearing, and I particularly 

want to thank you for your co-authorship of the legislation that we 

have put forward, the ‘‘Free Flow of Information Act.’’

And today I also want to commend our Committee colleague, the 

gentleman from Indiana, Mr. Pence, for his devotion of time and 

effective effort to this cause. He is the lead Republican sponsor of 

our bill, and I can say that it has been a tremendous privilege and 

pleasure to work with Mr. Pence as we have put this measure forward. 

We are joined by 43 other Members of the House as co-sponsors 

of the bill, who, on a bipartisan basis, believe that the time has arrived for Congress to extend to journalists a privilege to refrain 

from revealing their confidential information sources in Federal 

court proceedings. 

The privilege our bill provides is similar to those currently extended by 33 States and the District of Columbia. 

The ability to assure confidentiality to people who provide information is essential to effective news-gathering and reporting on 

highly sensitive and important issues. Typically, the best information about corruption in Government or misdeeds within a large 

private organization, whether that is a large charity or a corporation, will come from someone on the inside who feels a responsibility to call a reporter and bring that matter to public scrutiny. 

But that person truly has a lot to lose if his or her identity becomes known. In many cases, the person responsible for the corruption or the misdeeds can punish the source by dismissal or some 

more subtle form of retribution in the event that that individual’s 

identity is revealed. 

In the most sensitive cases, it is only by assuring confidentiality 

to the source that a reporter is able to understand what has happened and bring that information to public scrutiny. 

I personally long thought that the ability to protect the confidentiality of sources is so essential to effective news-gathering that the 

first amendment the U.S. Constitution should be interpreted in a 

way that extends that protection as a matter of constitutional law. 

Now, unfortunately, the Supreme Court has not to date extended 

that protection, at least not to the extent that we think is appropriate. And given the increasing use of subpoenas in recent years 

to extract confidential information in Federal court proceedings, I 

think the time has clearly arrived for Congress to adopt this statutory privilege. 

And so we have put forward the ‘‘Free Flow of Information Act’’ 

in pursuit of the extension of that privilege to reporters. 

While extending a broad privilege, we have included some exceptions, for instance, in which source information can be disclosed, 

where a strong public interest compels that disclosure. The exceptions are three in number, and they are carefully tailored. 

The first is to prevent an imminent and actual harm to national 

security. And in including this exception, we have taken notes of 

the requests that have been made by the Department of Justice in 

order to protect national security. We think we do so fully through 

this exception. 

12

Secondly, to prevent imminent death or significant bodily harm; 

and, third, to determine who has disclosed trade secrets or personal 

health or financial information where that disclosure is in violation 

of law. 

An exception to the privilege would only apply if the court determines that the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in protecting news-gathering and the 

free flow of information. And so, where any of those three exceptions is asserted, the balancing test would then have to be applied 

by the court. 

The bill is a carefully crafted measure which will provide a needed privilege, and its passage clearly is necessary to protect the 

public’s right to know. 

I again want to thank Mr. Pence for his longstanding effective 

advocacy of this measure. It is a pleasure working with him, and 

I look forward to our further steps in this process. 

I would note that a measure identical to ours has been introduced in the Senate by Senators Dodd and Lugar, and I thank 

them for their leadership also. 

I point out for the benefit of Members that numerous journalistic 

organizations, ranging from the National Association of Broadcasters and the largest association of newspaper publishers to individual news organizations, including News Corp and the New York 

Times, have urged passage of this bill. And I thank each of them 

for their efforts, as well. 

Your assistance, Chairman Conyers, has been absolutely invaluable to this effort. And I want to thank you for the helpful suggestions that you and your staff have made, which are reflected in the 

legislation before us. And I want to thank you for your co-sponsorship and also for scheduling today’s hearing. 

I welcome today’s witnesses, and I want to thank them for taking 

time to share their views on this matter with us. 

And I am pleased, Mr. Chairman, to yield back at this time. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much, Rick Boucher. 

I am now pleased to recognize the gentleman from Indiana, Mike 

Pence, for his great work on this measure. 

Mr. PENCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am very humbled by 

your comments and the importance that you have personally placed 

on this legislation. Your sponsorship and your leadership has been 

seminal, and I am grateful for your support for the ‘‘Free Flow of 

Information Act.’’

I also want to welcome the qualified sympathies of the Ranking 

Member for this qualified privilege and would assure him of my desire, as I do on every issue before this Committee, to work closely 

with him. 

Let me also say what a genuine pleasure it has been to work 

with Congressman Rick Boucher of Virginia on this issue. I will 

concede, Mr. Chairman, that it was my intention that this legislation be the Pence-Boucher bill. [Laughter.] 

But I am honored to work on the Boucher-Pence version of the 

legislation, the American people having rearranged the order. 

So, Mr. Boucher, our witnesses may be glad to know and those 

looking in, I saw Mr. Boucher work through extraordinary tragedy 

in his district in Virginia Tech but never lose sight on this issue 

13

and so many other issues of the work of the American people. And 

I am grateful to have the opportunity to partner with him on this. 

Also, I would like to acknowledge our partners in the Senate, my 

senior Senator from Indiana, Senator Richard Lugar, and Senator 

Chris Dodd of Connecticut. 

And one last indulgence, Mr. Chairman. The son of one of my 

great inspirations in life is in the audience today, Jeff Brown, the 

head of a newspaper organization in the state of Indiana. His father, the late Robert N. Brown, had an enormous impact on my life 

and continues to be a loadstar to me of what it is to have integrity 

in journalism. And very much his example inspired my work on 

this. 

As a conservative who believes in limited Government, I know 

that the only check on Government power in real-time is a free and 

independent press. The ‘‘Free Flow of Information Act’’ is not about 

protecting reporters. It is about protecting the public’s right to 

know. 

Our founders did not add the freedom of the press to the Constitution because they got good press, and I am certainly not advocating a free and independent press because I always get good 

press. 

Enshrined in the first amendment are these words—‘‘Congress 

shall make no law abridging the freedom of the press.’’

We all remember when, not long ago, a confidential source 

brought to light abuses at the highest levels of our Government, in 

the long national nightmare of Watergate. History, though, records, 

with the revelation of the identity of W. Mark Felt, that he would 

have never come forward without the absolute assurance of confidentiality. 

But 30 years later, the press cannot make such assurances to 

sources, and we face the real danger that there may never be another Deep Throat. Protections provided by the ‘‘Free Flow of Information Act,’’ I submit, are necessary. The members of the media 

can bring forward information to the American people without fear 

of retribution or prosecution. 

In recent years, reporters such as Judith Miller have been jailed, 

Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams have been threatened 

with jail sentences. They are but a few names among many who 

have been subpoenaed for taking a stand for the first amendment 

and refusing to reveal confidential sources. 

Compelling reporters to testify and, in particular, compelling 

them to reveal the identity of their confidential sources is a detriment to the public interest. Without the promise of confidentiality, many important conduits of information about our Government will be shut down. 

The dissemination of information by the media to the public on 

matters ranging from the operation of our Government to events in 

our local communities is invaluable to the operation of democracy. 

Without the free flow of information from sources to reporters, the 

public can be ill-equipped to make decisions as an informed electorate. 

And it is important to note, Mr. Chairman, that this bill is not 

a radical step. Thirty-two States and the District of Columbia have 

various statutes that protect reporters from being compelled to tesVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:42 Sep 05, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00017 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\061407\36019.000 HJUD1 PsN: 36019
14

tify or disclose sources of information in court. The Ranking Member just favorably made reference to a recent compromise bill that 

passed in his home state of Texas. Seventeen States have protections for reporters as a result of judicial decisions. The ‘‘Free Flow 

of Information Act’’ would set simply national standards to those 

that are already in effect in most States. 

And most of the provisions of this bill come from the internal Department of Justice guideline instituted more than 30 years ago 

during the Nixon presidency. Strengthened in the 1980’s, the 

guidelines have been maintained by Republican and Democrat administrations ever since. In doing so, this legislation strikes a balance between the public’s need for information and the fair administration of justice. 

But in response to issues raised last year by the Department of 

Justice, the bill has been revised, not once, but twice, to narrow the 

scope of the privilege and create an exception to allow for compelled disclosure of a source that is necessary to prevent imminent 

or actual harm to national security, and this is altogether appropriate. 

This year, the bill, again, has been revised and updated in order 

to address legitimate concerns that were raised with regard to the 

scope of the privilege. The national security exception has been 

maintained and additional exceptions have been added to allow for 

compelled disclosure of a source, situations involving imminent 

bodily harm or death, or in cases where a trade secret or personal 

medical or financial information are revealed in violation of the 

law. 

In such cases, a judge will perform a balancing test to determine 

whether compelling disclosure of the source would be contrary to 

the public interest, taking into account the public’s interest in compelling disclosure and the countervailing interest in maintaining 

the free flow of information. 

It is also important to note what the bill does not do. It does not 

give reporters a license to break the law in the name of gathering 

news. It does not give them the right to interfere with police or 

prosecutors who are trying to prevent crime. It leaves laws on classified information unchanged. 

It simply gives journalists certain rights and abilities to seek 

sources and report information without fear of intimidation or imprisonment, much as in the public interest, we allow psychiatrists, 

clergy, social workers to maintain confidences. 

With this qualified privilege, reporters will be ensured the ability 

to get the American people the information they need. A free and 

independent press is the only agency in America that has the complete freedom to hold Government accountable. 

And let me close with this, Mr. Chairman. Integrity in Government is not a Democrat or Republican issue. Corruption cannot be 

laid at the feet of one party or another. When scandal hits our national Government, whoever is responsible, it wounds our Nation. 

As a conservative, I believe the concentrations of power should 

be subject to great scrutiny. The longer I serve in Congress, the 

more firmly I believe in the wisdom of our founders, especially as 

it pertains to the first amendment and freedom of the press. 

15

It is important that we preserve the transparency and integrity 

of our American Government. And the only way to do that ultimately is by preserving a free and independent press. 

Thomas Jefferson warned, ‘‘Our liberty cannot be guarded but by 

the freedom of the press, nor that limited without the danger of 

losing it.’’ This Congress would be wise to heed those words. 

Now is the time to repair this tear in the first amendment, pass 

a Federal media shield law. I look forward to working with the 

Chairman, my partner, Mr. Boucher, and many on this distinguished panel of witnesses to achieve just that. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. I thank you so much. 

Darrell Issa? 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I will be the first 

to speak that hasn’t co-sponsored the bill, because I have some concerns about it. 

I, too, like the authors, believe that the first amendment, in no 

uncertain terms, should shield the right for discovery purposes of 

the press. No member of the press should ever be forced to reveal 

a conversation they have with a source or potential source. 

However, in the language as drafted, not the principal behind it, 

but the language as drafted, I fear that what we are doing is creating a situation in which known, what I would call, mischief becomes condoned. 

It is not, in fact, the press’s ability to glean information that I 

am concerned about or their right to protect the sources that they 

hear. It is, in fact, the fruit of that misused should not be protected. 

Just yesterday, 25 feet on the other side of my left, I saw Administrator Doan of the GSA forced to answer a Washington Post article that released the names and activities of people that she commented to in a private deposition, under oath. Those names were 

released and her comments. She was held to have released, at least 

in the opinion of the Chairman, confidential information, when, in 

fact, The Washington Post released those informations based on 

the fruit of a known illegal leak. 

Information was given to The Washington Post before it was 

even given to the people involved in the case, and it was published. 

Now, The Washington Post could have redacted the names. They 

could have done what was appropriate to recognize that they had 

a fruit that, in fact, was illegal to be released. An individual who 

was releasing it in the Office of Special Counsel, a part of our Government, was releasing it for some purpose to promote their prosecution, I would believe. And they released that information, and 

then they used it inappropriately. 

Even though I appreciate a great deal what The Washington 

Post does, The Washington Post had an opportunity to make it better. The reporter had an opportunity to recognize that they could 

get the entire story that the special counsel was doing something 

and that that activity, in that reporter’s opinion, was extremely important to the balance of Government. 

I have no objections to the article, but the release of the information and the source that gave them that information, that now has 

16

tarnished multiple individuals who worked for the GSA—is, in fact, 

under this bill, the way I read it, unreachable. 

I believe it is, in fact, that we must re-draft in order to make it 

clear that if, not just all the sources, but the fruit harms no one 

or is harming them only to the extent necessary for a free press, 

that we should shield that, but we should shield no more than that. 

Because, again, it is not the chilling effect on the press that we can 

only be concerned about. 

We must be concerned about the chilling effect on people in their 

day-to-day lives or in Government service doing their job and finding a press often misused and, in many cases, by their very enemies within the Government using the press for this purpose. 

So I hope to take a positive role here in the hearings today and 

in such drafting changes as would be necessary to protect against 

exactly what happened 20 feet over yesterday. 

With that, I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, Darrell. Thanks so much. 

Steve Cohen? 

Mr. COHEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your having 

this hearing and the gentlemen from Indiana and Virginia bringing 

us this bill. 

I am a co-sponsor, and, like the Ranking Member, I have a confession. Although not Catholic, but it is still good for the soul, I am 

an admitted press sympathizer, having a history in high school and 

college with the press. 

I think this is a good thing. Watergate has been brought up. Nobody has brought up Mark Foley, but there are all kind of 

incidences that we have had in Government where, if it weren’t for 

the press, they probably wouldn’t have come to light. Watergate 

probably being a seminal event that changed the course of this 

country, and we would not have known of that illegal conduct otherwise. 

I would hope, in your testimony—and I know you have written 

testimony—that you all would give us some clear examples of instances and cases where you think this would have indeed benefited the American people, having shield laws in other States or 

where the shield law might have been helpful. And also the Scooter 

Libby situation, how that might have affected that case, if we 

would have gotten to the bottom of that or not. 

And I appreciate your being here. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

The former Chairman of this Committee, Jim Sensenbrenner. 

Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

As you know, I am not a co-sponsor of this legislation, and I have 

serious concerns about it. With every right is to be given a responsibility. And my view of some of the things certain elements of the 

news media have done certainly hasn’t been responsible, in terms 

of publishing information. And let me give two examples. 

The New York Times published how our Government tracks 

money laundering by terrorists and other people who are contributing to illegal activities through a system that is located in Brussels, Belgium. 

17

There was no allegation of illegality on the part of anybody in 

the Government. This was a perfectly legal request for information 

that the Government had subpoenaed, and the subpoena was complied with, and as a result of that publication, anybody that wanted 

to transfer money would be using other means for that, because it 

simply was tipped off. And, again, there was no allegation of misconduct. This was just a newsworthy story. 

Now, what is the difference between shielding who leaked that 

information and which newspaper reporters got that information 

with who leaked the information and which newspaper reporters 

got the identity of an undercover CIA agent? 

Now, their leaking the undercover identity of the CIA agent was 

a crime, it was misconduct, but here we saw the press harm the 

national security when there was no misconduct involved. It might 

have been a good story, but the people who are trying to blow us 

up or the people who are trying to launder money for illegal purposes were simply tipped off by the gratuitous publication by the 

New York Times of the story on the check clearing or the money 

transfer clearing operation in Belgium. 

I don’t see very much responsibility there. And it seems to me 

that the burden of proof in showing that a press shield will be used 

responsibly should be on the news media. 

Thank you. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you so much. 

Howard Coble? 

Mr. COBLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very brief. I 

won’t use my 5 minutes. 

Mr. Chairman, I traditionally——

Mr. CONYERS. You don’t have 5 minutes. 

Mr. COBLE. I am glad to know that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I traditionally do not sponsor legislation. To get me to sponsor 

legislation, you have to put a gun to my head. But on this legislation, you would probably have to put a gun to my head to keep me 

off of it, because I see far more good than bad in this bill put together by Congressman Pence and Congressman Boucher. 

Mr. Chairman, I think it establishes a national standard for 

dealing with confidential media sources. And the standard, it is my 

belief, will give reporters and their sources a safe harbor to freely 

discuss sensitive legislation, which would also provide several exceptions for national security, imminent death, bodily harm, trade 

secrets. 

I think there is a provision about medical information that 

should be protected, but other than that, I think it provides a lot 

of sunlight and transparency that is badly needed. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thanks, Howard Coble. 

Our first witness is the Assistant Attorney General for Legal Policy at the Department of Justice, Rachel Brand. She was previously 

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General and then Associate 

Counsel to the President. 

And so we are delighted to start off our testimony. We have a 

distinguished group of witnesses. 

And we are happy to have you representing the Department of 

Justice. Please begin. 

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TESTIMONY OF THE HONORABLE RACHEL BRAND, ASSISTANT 

ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR THE OFFICE OF LEGAL POLICY, 

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 

Ms. BRAND. Thank you, and good morning to all the Members of 

the Committee. 

This hearing touches on two matters of paramount concern to the 

Department of Justice—protecting the safety and security of the 

Nation and protecting freedom of speech and of the press. 

We appreciate that H.R. 2102 is motivated by a genuine interest 

in balancing these values, but we believe the existing legal and policy framework strikes a better balance. 

We also have a number of specific concerns with the way this 

particular bill is formulated. We do not believe the case has been 

made that any legislation is necessary on this subject. It has been 

suggested that subpoenas to the media are on the rise. But at least 

as to subpoenas from the Department of Justice, the numbers contradict that claim. 

Evidence gathered by the Department’s Criminal Division reflect 

that the Attorney General has approved subpoenas to the media 

seeking source-related information in only 19 cases since 1991. 

Only four of those cases have occurred since 2001. 

The Department’s record of restraint in this area is a result of 

adherence to longstanding guidelines. These guidelines require the 

Attorney General to approve personally any contested subpoena to 

the media and require that the prosecuting office seeking the subpoena show, among other things, that the information sought is essential to the investigation and cannot be obtained through other 

means. 

The Department’s policy stresses the need to balance the public 

interest in the free dissemination of information and in effective 

law enforcement and fair administration of justice. 

I would like to point out a few of the Department’s most significant concerns about this particular legislation. First, we believe the 

bill will make it virtually impossible to investigate and prosecute 

many leaks of classified national security information to the press. 

There is broad recognition of the serious harm that these leaks 

can cause. In many such cases, there is no way to determine the 

source of a leak without testimony from the person to whom it was 

leaked. 

This bill would place the Department in a catch-22 when we 

tried to investigate these cases. The bill would allow a subpoena to 

issue for source-related information only where the Government 

could show by a preponderance of the evidence that disclosure of 

the information was necessary to prevent imminent and actual 

harm to national security. 

In a case where a leak had already been made, the classified information already published, and the harm already done, the Government could never meet this standard, because it would be attempting to bring a leaker to justice, not necessarily to prevent additional harm. 

Even in cases where the classified information had been published and the Government believed that grave harm was still likely to occur, the Government might not have evidence that the harm 

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was imminent and, therefore, could not bring a leaker to justice in 

that case either. 

Even assuming the Department could show that obtaining the 

information would prevent imminent harm to the national security, 

in practice the bill would require the Government to produce even 

more classified information in court, compounding the harm that 

had already occurred when the leak was made. 

Moreover, in a case in which truly imminent harm to the national security could be abated by obtaining source information 

from a reporter, it is unlikely that the judicial proceeding required 

by the bill could move quickly enough to allow the harm to be 

averted. 

We are concerned that the bill would encourage more leaks of 

classified information by giving someone considering a leak comfort 

that it would be so difficult for the Government to investigate the 

leak that he almost certainly would never be found out or prosecuted. 

These concerns do not apply only in the national security context. 

Also of significant concern is the damage this legislation would 

cause to our ability and the courts’ ability to investigate leaks of 

grand jury information. Disclosure of grand jury information jeopardizes criminal investigations, shows contempt for the court, and 

can damage the reputations of individuals who are under investigation, but later exonerated. 

In some grand jury leak cases, the courts order the Department 

to investigate the leak. The bill would make it virtually impossible 

for either the Department or the court to investigate such a case 

for the same reasons it would make it very difficult to investigate 

leaks of classified information to the press. 

Nor would the bill prevent only the Government from obtaining 

information. It might also violate the sixth amendment in cases in 

which its procedures prevented a criminal defendant from obtaining information for their defense. 

These concerns are compounded by the bill’s very broad definition of journalism, which includes anyone who publicly disseminates any news or information that he has written or gathered on 

any matter of public interest. This would enable many millions of 

people in the United States and abroad, including, for example, the 

media components of terrorist organizations, to refuse to provide 

testimony or evidence in criminal investigations. 

We are concerned that this legislation would scrap a system that 

has successfully balanced the competing interests of Federal law 

enforcement and the free flow of information to replace it with one 

that, at best, will yield inconsistent results in 94 judicial districts 

around the country and it would do so without evidence that the 

freedom of the press is being impaired by the efforts of law enforcement to investigate and prosecute crime. 

For these reasons and others discussed in my written statement, 

we oppose this legislation. 

I am happy to be here, and I am happy to take your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Brand follows:]

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF RACHEL L. BRAND


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Mr. CONYERS. Thank you so much for giving us the Department’s 

position. 

We were debating whether we have ever had a Pulitzer Prize 

winner before the Committee, and we are checking it out, but we 

know we have one this morning. And we are honored to have William Safire with us. 

I don’t like to bring this up, but I see you so little. Now, when 

you put this famous quote into American political discourse, ‘‘the 

nattering nabobs of negativism,’’ were you talking about the press? 

Mr. SAFIRE. May I answer right now? That was in a speech I 

wrote for Vice President Agnew in San Diego, and it was not about 

the press. It was about the defeatists in America. And I was looking for a phrase that I admired in Adlai Stevenson’s speech, where 

he talked about the prophets of gloom and doom. 

And so, looking around for a similar either rhyme or alliteration, 

I came up with ‘‘the nattering nabobs of negativism.’’

Mr. CONYERS. We are so honored to have you here, William 

Safire. I hope we don’t inspire some other phrase after this hearing. [Laughter.] 

Welcome. 

TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM SAFIRE, CHAIRMAN,

THE DANA FOUNDATION 

Mr. SAFIRE. Thank you. 

Mr. Chairman, Committee Members, I am here today to urge 

Congress to pass a law to stop the Federal Government and the 

courts from continuing down the dangerous path of denying Americans our right to the free flow of news. 

For 30 years, I was a political columnist for the New York Times

and now write a weekly language column for the Times Magazine. 

Before that, I was a speech writer in the Nixon White House. The 

opinions I express today are my own. 

For the past few years, the process of gathering the news has 

been under unprecedented attack. That is because prosecutors and 

judges have been stripping away the single most important tool a 

reporter has for digging out information—the ability to gain the 

trust of a source by promising to keep his or her identity confidential. 

The movement to force journalists to reveal their sources is an 

attempt to turn the press into an arm of the law. That trend defeats the administration of justice. The reason that almost all of 

the States have set up shields for journalists is that the exposure 

of corruption, malfeasance, official incompetence and stultifying secrecy often starts with the press. It helps the law because it is 

independent of the law. 

I am here as a journalist to testify from my real world that ‘‘a 

chilling effect,’’ in Justice Brennan’s phrase, is being felt by today’s 

reporters and columnists. Believe me, when a journalist is threatened with jail or, indeed, is jailed for refusing to blow the whistle 

on a whistleblower or to betray a trusting source, he or she feels 

a coercive chill. 

And when a reporter is faced with legal expenses that his 

midsized publication cannot afford to pick up and the choice is ratting out a source or going into bankruptcy, that hits home. Don’t 

30

believe that ordinary citizens, as well as public officials, won’t 

think twice about trusting a reporter to respect the confidence. It 

is happening right now as never before. 

Here is something else I hope you won’t believe: that a Federal 

shield law, like those now helping police and prosecutors in almost 

all the States, means that journalists will be placed above the law 

that requires other citizens to give testimony. 

That is a slogan, not an argument. Lawyers have that privilege 

and are not above the law, same with clergy of all faiths, same 

with doctors and, since 1996, same with psychotherapists. And that 

same right to clam up exists with husbands and wives, including, 

I think, divorced spouses, not to be forced to betray confidences 

about each other. 

When you stop to think about it, it means that more than half 

the people in America must have the privilege. Are they all above 

the law? Of course, those time honored protections are in effect because our society, in many cases, for good reason, puts trust and 

mutual confidence first. There are always practical limitations. For 

example, you cannot refuse to testify in order to help commit a future crime. 

That sense of balance is why the bill before you makes sense and 

is overdue. It takes the public interest in compelling disclosure of 

the source and balances it with the public interest in gathering 

news. 

Last year, the Justice Department’s central objection to a journalist shield was national security. This bill responds to that concern by making it possible to break confidence ‘‘when necessary to 

prevent imminent and actual harm to national security.’’

I am in the word business. ‘‘Imminent,’’ rooted in the Latin for 

‘‘threat,’’ does not mean ‘‘soon.’’ It means about to happen, without 

delay. If the Committee is interested, I have a few concrete insider 

examples to illustrate the connection between source and reporter. 

Under Department of Justice guidelines about subpoenas to journalists, I have some information about how and why they were 

drawn up and how they have been subverted and made meaningless; on the latest chilling effect technique, how a prosecutor can 

play the media hostage card, the spiteful criticism of him by an 

otherwise gutsy columnist; on how a reporter makes and keeps contact with sources instead of relying on that old over-the-transom 

missive that cannot be verified and should be distrusted. 

How many people remember what a transom was? 

On the long-term relationship between source and reporter that 

led to the story of the first use of poison gas at Halabja in Iraq, 

which was broadcast on CBS and ignored, and I have information 

to partake and pass along on how much to trust a source and when 

to stop trusting him in connection with the director of CIA in Iran. 

Finally, how and when a prosecutor got to a source with the help 

of a reporter in connection with the U.N. oil for food scandal. 

My purpose in offering you these tidbits is to take the subject out 

of the legal and academic area for a few moments and give you a 

sense of life in the real world of news gathering. It is a cityscape 

of two-way streets, sometimes frowned upon as symbiotic relationships, under attack by well-meaning people, eager to penetrate confidence to protect secrecy. 

31

It needs the protection of a new Federal law to give clarity to the 

present confusion in the minds of judges, prosecutors, litigants, 

and, yes, deepening concern in the world of reporters and the 

sources who trust them. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Safire follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF WILLIAM SAFIRE

Mr. Chairman, committee members: I am here today to urge Congress to pass a 

law to stop the Federal government and the courts from continuing down the dangerous path of denying Americans our right to the free flow of news. 

For thirty years, I was a political columnist for the New York Times, and now 

write a weekly language column for the Times magazine. Before that, I was a 

speechwriter in the Nixon White House. The opinions I express are my own. 

For the past few years, the process of gathering the news has been under unprecedented attack. That’s because prosecutors and judges have been stripping away the 

single most important tool a reporter has for digging out information: the ability to 

gain the trust of a source by promising to keep his or her identity confidential. 

The movement to force journalists to reveal their sources is an attempt to turn 

the press into an arm of the law. That trend defeats the administration of justice. 

The reason that almost all of the states have set up shields for journalists is that 

the exposure of corruption, malfeasance, official incompetence and stultifying secrecy often starts with the press. It helps the law because it is independent of the 

law. 

I’m here as a journalist to testify from my real world that a ‘‘chilling effect’’, in 

Justice Brennan’s phrase, is being felt by today’s reporters and columnists. Believe 

me, when a journalist is threatened with jail, or indeed is jailed, for refusing to blow 

the whistle on a whistleblower, or to betray a trusting source, he or she feels a coercive chill. And when a reporter is faced with legal expenses that his mid-sized publication cannot afford to pick up, and the choice is ‘‘ratting out’’ a source or going into 

bankruptcy, that hits home hard. Don’t believe that ordinary citizens as well as public officials won’t think twice about trusting a reporter to respect a confidence—it’s 

happening right now as never before. 

Here’s something else I hope you won’t believe; that a Federal shield law—like 

those now helping police and prosecutors in almost all the States—means that journalists will be placed ‘‘above the law’’ that requires other citizens to give testimony. 

That’s a slogan, not an argument. Lawyers have that privilege and are not ‘‘above 

the law’’. Same with clergy of all faiths; same with doctors, and since 1996, same 

with psychotherapists. And the same right to clam up exists with husbands and 

wives, including divorced spouses, not to be forced to betray confidences about each 

other. When you stop to think about it, it means that more than half the people 

in America must have the ‘‘privilege’’; are they all ‘‘above the law’’? 

Of course, those time-honored protections are in effect because our society, in 

many cases and for good reason, puts trust and mutual confidence first. But there 

are always practical limitations; You cannot refuse to testify in order to help commit 

a future crime. 

That sense of balance is why the bill before you makes sense. And is overdue. It 

takes the public interest in compelling disclosure of the source and balances it with 

the public interest in gathering news. Last year the Justice Department’s central 

objection to a journalists’ shield was ‘‘national security’’. This bill responds to that 

concern by making it possible to break confidence when ‘‘necessary to prevent imminent and actual harm to national security’’. I’m in the word business: ‘‘imminent’’, 

rooted in the Latin for ‘‘threat’’, does not mean ‘‘soon’’—it means ‘‘about to happen, 

without delay.’’

If the committee is interested, I have a few concrete ‘‘insider’s’’ examples to illustrate the connection between source and reporter. 

On the Department of Justice ‘‘guidelines’’ about subpoenas to journalists: I have 

some information about how and why they were drawn up and how they have been 

subverted and made meaningless. 

On the latest ‘‘chilling effect’’ technique: how a prosecutor can play the media hostage card to stifle criticism of him by an otherwise gutsy columnist. 

On how a reporter makes and keeps contact with sources instead of relying on 

the old ‘‘over the transom’’ missive that cannot be verified and should be distrusted. 

On the long-term relationship between source and reporter that led to the story 

of the first use of poison gas at Halabja in Iraq—broadcast on CBS and ignored. 

On how much to trust a source and when to stop trusting him, in connection with 

the director of CIA and Iran. 

32

On when and how a prosecutor got to a source with the help of a reporter, in connection with the UN oil-for-food scandal. 

My purpose in offering you these tidbits is to take the subject out of the legal and 

academic area for a few moments and give you a sense of life in the real world of 

newsgathering. It’s a cityscape of two-way streets, sometimes frowned upon as ‘‘symbiotic relationships’’. Under attack by well-meaning people eager to penetrate confidence to protect secrecy, it needs the protection of new Federal law to give clarity 

to the present confusion in the minds of judges, prosecutors, litigants and yes—

deepening concern in the world of reporters and the sources who trust them.

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you so much. Appreciate your being with 

us for this discussion. 

Lee Levine has been in the Supreme Court on the subject matter 

that brings us here more times than anyone I know. He is teaching 

at Georgetown University Law Center, and we are very pleased to 

have him with us today. 

TESTIMONY OF LEE LEVINE,

LEVIN SULLIVAN KOCH & SCHULZ 

Mr. LEVINE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee. 

For almost three decades following the Supreme Court’s 1972 decision in Branzburg v. Hayes, subpoenas issued by Federal courts 

seeking disclosure journalists’ confidential sources were very, very 

rare. It appears that no journalist was finally judged in contempt, 

much less imprisoned, for refusing to disclose a confidential source 

in a Federal criminal matter during the last quarter of the 20th 

century. 

That situation has now changed. An unprecedented number of 

subpoenas seeking the names of confidential sources have been 

issued by Federal courts in a remarkably short period of time. 

Three Federal proceedings in Washington, D.C. alone generated 

such subpoenas to roughly two dozen reporters and news organizations, seven of whom were held in contempt in less than 1 year. 

Since 2001, four Federal Courts of Appeals have affirmed contempt citations issued to reporters, each court imposing prison sentences on reporters more severe than any previously known in 

American history. 

Decisions such as these have emboldened private litigants as 

well, especially since they, like special prosecutors, are not bound 

by the Department of Justice guidelines. In one civil suit, five reporters, including two that I represented, were held in contempt for 

declining to reveal their confidential sources in litigation instituted 

against the Government by Dr. Wen Ho Lee. 

They were spared the imposition of judicial sanctions only because the news organizations for whom they worked paid a total 

of $750,000 to Dr. Lee, even though neither the reporters nor their 

employers were or lawfully could have been held liable to Dr. Lee 

in that case. 

Now, the plaintiff in another civil suit, Dr. Steven Hatfill, has 

issued subpoenas and/or moved to compel disclosure of the identities of confidential sources from eight news organization and six reporters, several of whom I also represent. 

There could be no dispute that this deluge of subpoenas in the 

Federal courts has now reached epidemic proportions. This should 

be a matter of great concern to the Congress and to the public. 

33

In recent proceedings in Federal courts, journalist after journalist has convincingly testified about the important role confidential sources play in enabling them to do their jobs. In my written 

testimony, I recount several such examples. 

Consider just one. In 1977, Walter Pincus, of The Washington 

Post, relied on confidential sources in reporting that President 

Carter planned to move forward with plans to develop a so-called 

neutron bomb, a weapon that could inflict massive casualties 

through radiation without extensive destruction of property. 

The public and congressional outcry in the wake of these news 

reports spurred the United States to abandon plans for such a 

weapon and no Administration has since attempted to revive it. 

Mr. Pincus, who never received a subpoena about the neutron 

bomb or any other matter in the course of his distinguished decades long career, has now received two, one from the special counsel in the Valerie Plame matter and another from Dr. Lee. 

Needless to say, the prospect of substantial prison terms and escalating fines for honoring promises to sources threatens this kind 

of journalism. As Los Angeles Times reporter and Pulitzer Prize recipient Bob Drogin, who himself was held in contempt in the Wen 

Ho Lee case, has testified, ‘‘I have thought long and hard about 

this and unlike you attorneys here in the room, I do not have subpoena power or anything else to gather information. I have what 

credibility I have as a journalist. I have the word that I give to people to protect their confidentiality. If I violate that trust, then I believe I can no longer work as a journalist.’’

Indeed, in the wake of some of the judicial decisions about which 

I have spoken this morning, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, to cite just 

one example, decided that it was obliged to withhold from publication two investigative reports because they were predicated on documents provided by confidential sources. 

Doug Clifton, the newspaper’s editor, explained that the public 

would have been well-served to know about these stories, but that 

publishing them would ‘‘almost certainly lead to a leak investigation and the ultimate choice: talk or go to jail. Because talking isn’t 

an option and jail is too high a price to pay, these two stories will 

go untold for now.’’

The situation that currently exists in the Federal courts has not 

been replicated in the States. In fact, 49 States and the District of 

Columbia recognize some form of reporter’s privilege. Thirty-four of 

them have now enacted shield laws. 

In a submission to the U.S. Supreme Court, the attorneys general of those States, each of whom is responsible for the enforcement of the criminal law in their respective jurisdictions, have convincingly demonstrated that their shield laws have had no material 

impact on law enforcement or on the discovery of evidence in judicial proceedings, civil or criminal. 

Up until now, journalists have looked to the Supreme Court to 

address the confusion that now surrounds that reporter’s privilege. 

The court, however, has consistently declined to intervene. In 

Branzburg, itself, Justice White’s opinion for the court emphasized 

that ‘‘Congress has the freedom to determine whether a statutory 

newsman’s privilege is necessary and desirable and to fashion 

34

standards and rules as narrow or broad as deemed necessary to 

deal with the evil discerned.’’

Members of the Committee, the time has now come for congressional action. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Levine follows:]

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF LEE LEVINE


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Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, sir. 

Randall Eliason lectures at the Washington University Law 

School and was Chief of the Public Corruption Government Fraud 

section in the U.S. attorney’s office in the District of Columbia. He 

is well-known for his work in this area, and I am very pleased to 

have him before the Committee this morning. 

TESTIMONY OF RANDALL ELIASON, PROFESSOR,

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL 

Mr. ELIASON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good morning. 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee, thank you for 

asking me to be here today. 

As a former Federal prosecutor of public corruption cases, I have 

a great respect and admiration for the importance of a free press 

and for the power of investigative journalism. But I do not support 

the Federal reporter’s privilege, and the reason is that I am convinced it won’t do what the law says it will do. 

It will not affect the flow of information to the public, and it will 

not keep reporters from going to jail. The law will, however, impose 

substantial costs, both by excluding relevant evidence in a wide variety of cases and by encouraging or by increasing litigation costs 

and delays as parties battle over the privilege’s terms. 

The main rationale for the privilege has always been that without it, there will be a chilling effect on confidential sources, who 

will not come forward without a privilege for fear of having their 

identities revealed. 

Although this chilling effect is widely assumed to exist, I believe 

it is very unlikely that the presence or absence of a Federal privilege statute would have any significant role in a source’s decision 

about whether or not to come forward. 

In the 35 years since the landmark case of Branzburg v. Hayes,

there has been no Federal reporter’s privilege law. During that 

time, the press in this country has flourished. Major stories from 

Watergate and Iran Contra up through Abu Ghraib, secret CIA 

prisons, and unlawful surveillance by the Government, all have 

been reported without a Federal privilege law. 

Confidential sources are indeed important to journalism, but that 

doesn’t mean that a privilege law is required. A reporter can promise a great deal of confidentiality simply by promising not to name 

a source in an article and never to reveal her name voluntarily. A 

source given this promise knows that she would be identified by 

the reporter only if, at the end of a long, drawn-out legal process, 

the court ordered the reporter to name her. 

The odds of that happening are extremely remote, and thus the 

source can be assured of a high degree of confidentiality from the 

reporter’s promise alone. 

And the flipside of this argument is that even if we had an ironclad, airtight shield law, a reporter can’t really promise a source 

confidentiality or that she will never be identified. 

People who leak information to the press face many risks that 

they will be discovered through internal leak investigations, 

through investigations by third parties or other lawsuits that don’t 

involve compelling the reporter to testify, and other means, ComVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:42 Sep 05, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00056 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 H:\WORK\FULL\061407\36019.000 HJUD1 PsN: 36019
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pared to those risks, the risk that a court someday a year or 2 or 

more down the road might order the reporter to testify is actually 

very small. 

And a source who has decided to face those much more significant risks and to come forward, I submit, is very unlikely to be deterred by the far more remote chance that someday a judge might 

order the reporter to testify. 

A final fact that cuts against this chilling effect argument is the 

availability of anonymous tips. Advocates of the privilege like to 

analogize it to the attorney-client privilege, the doctor-patient privilege, the spousal privilege. Well, you can’t have an anonymous communication with your wife or husband or your doctor or your lawyer, but you can give an anonymous tip to a reporter. 

And so any sources that truly are chilled by the absence of a 

privilege law can always leak information to the press by providing 

documents or making a call without identifying themselves. 

A Federal privilege law also will not keep reporters out of jail. 

Because the privilege will not be absolute, there will be cases 

where a court overrides the privilege and orders the reporter to testify. And if that happens, history shows us that many reporters 

will refuse to honor that court order and will be held in contempt 

and will go to jail. 

Reporters don’t go to jail because of the lack of a Federal privilege law. They go to jail because they are placing themselves above 

the law that does exist and refusing to honor valid court orders, 

even when there is a privilege. 

Finally, concerning H.R. 2102 in particular, I believe that the 

nearly absolute protection for the identity of sources is a concern, 

particularly where the leak to a reporter is itself a crime, as with 

the leak of classified information. This provision would effectively 

grant immunity from prosecution to a great many offenders. 

The exceptions to the privilege also seem, to me, difficult to justify. For example, a source could be identified if necessary to discover who leaked a corporate trade secret, but not to obtain critical 

evidence to prosecute terrorism or other serious crimes. 

The bill’s definition of journalism is also, I think, problematic. It 

is extremely broad and includes essentially anyone who gathers information and disseminates it to the public. In the age of the Internet, we are all journalists under this bill, and this renders the potential scope of the privilege, I believe, unacceptably broad. 

And my final point relates to a case I know you are all familiar 

with, the BALCO case from San Francisco. I know that case has 

been cited by many as evidence that we need a Federal privilege 

law. 

I would be happy to discuss that case in more detail, but in 

short, I don’t believe that case demonstrates the privilege law 

would be a good thing. In fact, I think it demonstrates just the opposite. 

Thank you again for the opportunity to be here, and I look forward to answering any of your questions. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Eliason follows:]

54

PREPARED STATEMENT OF RANDALL D. ELIASON

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: Thank you very much for inviting 

me to be here today to testify concerning the proposed federal reporter’s privilege 

or shield law. I am a former federal prosecutor, and worked as an Assistant United 

States Attorney in the District of Columbia for more than twelve years. From 1999 

to 2001, I served as the Chief of the Public Corruption/Government Fraud section 

of that office. I now teach a course on white collar crime at the George Washington 

University Law School and at the American University, Washington College of Law. 

As a former prosecutor of public corruption cases, I am a great fan of investigative 

journalism. Many significant corruption cases are first exposed through reports in 

the press; the Jack Abramoff and Randy ‘‘Duke’’ Cunningham scandals are just two 

of the most recent examples. I believe that a vigorous, free press is vital to our democracy, and I fully appreciate the critical role the press plays as a watchdog over 

both the government and the private sector. 

Nevertheless, I do not support a federal reporter’s shield law. I believe such a law 

is extremely unlikely to achieve its stated goals: to encourage and increase the free 

flow of information to the public and to keep reporters from going to jail to protect 

their sources. The law will, however, impose substantial costs, both by excluding relevant evidence from consideration in particular cases and by adding to litigation expense and delays as parties battle over the privilege’s terms. In addition, I believe 

that technology, particularly the rise of the Internet, has so fundamentally transformed journalism that a reporter’s privilege today is neither practical nor constitutionally workable. 

COSTS AND BENEFITS OF A PRIVILEGE

The primary rationale for a reporter’s privilege is that, in the absence of a privilege, confidential sources will not speak to the press for fear of having their identities revealed. This claimed ‘‘chilling effect’’ on sources will supposedly hamper the 

ability of the press to uncover sensitive information and report it to the public. Accordingly, the argument runs, the privilege is necessary to encourage sources who 

wish to remain anonymous to share information with the press. Virtually all judicial, academic, and policy discussions of the privilege proceed from the assumption 

that this chilling effect is real; rarely is the claim held up to any critical scrutiny. 

I would like to challenge this assumption. I submit there is little or no evidence that 

this chilling effect exists, and thus little reason to believe that any real benefits 

would flow from the passage of a privilege law. 

By contrast, there can be no doubt that privileges have costs, and this law would 

be no exception. All evidentiary privileges shield relevant evidence from consideration by a jury or other fact-finder; as the Supreme Court has noted, privileges are 

in derogation of the search for truth. The exclusion of relevant evidence may directly 

impact the rights of criminal defendants or civil litigants, or may prevent prosecutors from bringing criminals to justice. As a result, privileges have the potential to 

lead to errors or injustice in any given case. Privileges also result in litigation costs, 

as parties and the courts devote time and resources to resolving questions concerning the privilege’s applicability. Before creating new privileges, therefore, we 

should be fairly confident that the resulting benefits will outweigh the costs. The 

reporter’s privilege inspires no such confidence. 

HISTORY SUGGESTS THE PRIVILEGE IS NOT NECESSARY

In 1972, in the landmark case of Branzburg v. Hayes, the United States Supreme 

Court held that the First Amendment does not provide a privilege for reporters to 

refuse to testify, at least in grand jury proceedings. The majority in Branzburg was 

quite skeptical of the underlying factual premise of the proposed privilege; namely, 

that in the absence of a privilege sources would be deterred from speaking to the 

press. The Court observed that the nation’s history of a vigorous free press seemed 

to undercut that claim. The Court also noted that claims about the effect of a privilege on newsgathering were largely speculative and consisted primarily of the opinions of journalists themselves, and thus had to be viewed in light of the professional 

self-interest of those making the claims. 

In the thirty-five years since Branzburg, there has been no federal reporter’s 

privilege statute. Yet the country has been blessed with a robust free press, with 

great ability to ferret out and publish information from confidential informants and 

other sources. The examples are legion: from the Watergate scandal which exploded 

in the media around the time Branzburg was decided, to recent press revelations 

concerning Abu Ghraib prison, potentially unlawful domestic surveillance by the 

government, and secret overseas CIA prisons. Indeed, the latter stories were pubVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:42 Sep 05, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\WORK\FULL\061407\36019.000 HJUD1 PsN: 36019
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lished by journalists who apparently received confidential leaks even while the highly-publicized CIA leak/Valerie Plame case was going on and journalists were being 

jailed and compelled to reveal their sources. The Plame case was a very visible demonstration that reporters often cannot protect their sources, and yet other sources 

were not deterred. It would appear that sources are quite impervious to the chills. 

Proponents of a privilege often cite the importance of confidential sources to the 

reporting of such historic events as Watergate, the Pentagon papers, or the IranContra scandal. What they usually fail to note is that those stories all were reported 

despite the lack of any federal reporter’s privilege law. Leaking to the press is widespread, occurs for many reasons, and is a pervasive part of our culture. As a historical matter, it’s hard to make the case that the free press in this country has suffered as a result of the lack of a federal privilege. 

THE MEANING AND LIMITS OF CONFIDENTIALITY

There is little doubt that confidential sources are important to journalism. Clearly 

many sources request confidentiality, and presumably most do so for a reason. Journalists seem to be virtually unanimous in their belief that the use of confidential 

sources is essential to their work. This may be true as well, although there is currently a healthy debate taking place within the journalism community itself over 

whether reliance on confidential sources has become excessive. 

But granting that reporters need to be able to promise ‘‘confidentiality’’ leaves unanswered the question of exactly what that means. Privilege proponents argue that, 

in the absence of a privilege, reporters will be unable to promise confidentiality and 

thus their craft—and the public’s right to know—will suffer. The necessary corollary 

to this argument is that with a privilege, reporters will be able to assure confidentiality and the problem will be solved. But these claims are misleading for two different reasons: first, a reporter can promise a great deal of confidentiality even in 

the absence of a privilege law; and second, even with an ironclad privilege law, a 

reporter cannot really guarantee confidentiality. 

It is important to distinguish between a reporter’s promise of confidentiality and 

the existence of a legal evidentiary privilege. The former may indeed be quite important in encouraging sources to come forward; the latter seems unlikely to play much 

of a role in a source’s decision. Therefore, even granting that reporters sometimes 

need to promise confidentiality and that confidential sources are essential to journalism, it does not follow that a reporter’s privilege is necessary or even particularly 

important. We may assume for argument’s sake that confidential sources are, as 

former New York Times reporter Judith Miller testified before the Senate, the ‘‘life’s 

blood of journalism.’’ The question still remains whether the presence or absence of 

a reporter’s privilege has any effect on the blood flow. 

There are many different degrees and types of confidentiality. Presumably the 

most pressing concern for any confidential source is that he not be named in an article the reporter writes tomorrow, not that a judge might order the reporter to testify 

in some hypothetical case months or even years in the future. Typically a journalist 

is speaking with a source in connection with a story that will appear fairly soon. 

The first and foremost meaning of a guarantee of confidentiality is that, in any story 

the journalist prepares, the source will not be identified. In the overwhelming majority of cases, in fact, that is the end of the matter: the information is relayed, the 

story is reported, no one seeks to identify the source, and confidentiality is maintained. 

By simply promising never voluntarily to reveal a source’s name, therefore, a reporter can assure a high degree of confidentiality. Even if there is no privilege statute, a reporter may tell a source: ‘‘I will do all I can to protect your identity. I will 

not publish it, will not reveal it to anyone else voluntarily, and if I am ever subpoenaed I will fight as far and as hard as I can to avoid having to divulge it. Only 

if I’m compelled to do so by a valid court order after exhausting all of my appeals 

would I reveal your name.’’ A source given these assurances knows that he will be 

identified by the reporter only if: 1) the reporter actually writes a story that includes the source’s information; and 2) the story results in a lawsuit or investigation; and 3) a party to that case actually subpoenas the reporter; and 4) the reporter 

and the party are unable to reach some compromise that would still shield the 

source’s identity; and 5) the party chooses to pursue the matter to the bitter end 

and not simply give it up in light of the reporter’s refusal; and 6) all relevant trial 

and appellate courts eventually agree there is no basis for the reporter to withhold 

the information. The odds of all this happening are extremely remote. Relative to 

the total number of press reports involving confidential sources, the number of cases 

in which a reporter is actually compelled to testify is vanishingly small. Even if the 

reporter is ultimately forced to testify, it will likely be a year or more after the story 

56

appears. Thus for the vast majority of sources, the reporter’s simple promise not to 

reveal the source’s name voluntarily can satisfy any reasonable concern for confidentiality, quite independent of the existence of a privilege law. 

Equally important, it is false to suggest that if we have a privilege law a reporter 

will be able to guarantee a source that her identity will remain a secret. Even if 

there were an ironclad, absolute reporter’s privilege, a source could hardly breathe 

easily. A potential leaker faces many risks of exposure if she decides to pass information along to a reporter, even under the reporter’s promise of confidentiality. 

Court-ordered compulsion of the reporter is only one way that the source’s identity 

may be revealed, and is actually one of the least likely avenues. 

First, the source’s identity may be discovered through investigative methods that 

do not involve testimony from the reporter. Perhaps the most significant risk is that 

the source’s company or agency will conduct an internal investigation of the leak. 

Such an investigation may include taking employee statements under oath, examining e-mail or telephone records, and other methods. For example, in one recent 

case, a career intelligence officer was fired by the Central Intelligence Agency for 

leaking classified information to reporters about secret overseas CIA prisons. Her 

identity was discovered through an internal CIA investigation that included the administration of polygraph examinations to employees. As a result of that investigation the leaker was exposed, with no need to seek to compel the reporter to reveal 

her sources. 

In addition to internal investigations, there may be investigations of the leak 

launched by outside parties. If a reporter’s article results in civil litigation or a 

criminal investigation, those may lead to discovery of the source’s identity through 

many means other than subpoenaing the reporter. Civil discovery or a grand jury 

investigation may uncover e-mails, computer files, or other documents or witnesses 

that identify the source. The source may be deposed or subpoenaed to testify in the 

grand jury, and will then be forced to admit her role in the leak (unless she is willing to commit perjury). 

In any serious case, a thorough investigation of the leak is almost guaranteed. 

Companies and agencies concerned with safeguarding their secrets have a great incentive to track down the source of any leaks. In addition, courts that do recognize 

the privilege, as well as the Department of Justice guidelines for media subpoenas, 

require a party to exhaust all reasonable efforts to obtain the information from 

other sources before seeking to compel testimony from a reporter. A source can 

therefore be almost certain that before any issue of subpoenaing the reporter will 

even arise, the party seeking the information will exhaust every other reasonable 

means to discover the leaker’s identity. 

A potential source faces other significant risks as well. The reporter may in fact 

reveal the source’s identity, either deliberately or inadvertently, or may waive the 

privilege by disclosing the source’s identity to a third party. For example, in a recent, highly-publicized case in Rhode Island, reporter Jim Taricani was sentenced 

to six months home confinement after being convicted of criminal contempt for refusing to identify a confidential source who illegally provided him with an FBI videotape from a corruption probe. Shortly before he was convicted, however, Taricani 

made an inadvertent comment to an FBI agent about a document he had seen, 

which allowed the agent to deduce the identity of Taricani’s source. The source then 

came forward and admitted leaking the videotape, after learning he was about to 

be subpoenaed by prosecutors. 

There are still other risks. Details in the reporter’s article may make it possible 

for others to guess the source’s identity. Others may overhear the source’s conversations with the reporter, or may stumble across an e-mail or document revealing the 

conversations. The source’s colleagues may be contacted by a reporter who is trying 

to investigate further, and may deduce from those contacts the identity of the reporter’s source. Others who knew about or participated in the source’s conversations 

with the reporter may later decide to turn on the source and expose him, as recently 

happened in the BALCO case in San Francisco. 

All of these risks exist whether or not there is a privilege or a subpoena to the 

reporter. A reporter therefore could not guarantee a source that her identity would 

remain a secret, even if there were an absolute, airtight privilege law. There are 

far too many ways for a source’s identity to be discovered that are simply out of 

the reporter’s hands. Leaking will never be free from risk, regardless of the state 

of the law on reporter’s privilege. 

An individual who has decided to leak confidential information to the press has 

necessarily decided to assume a significant risk that she will be exposed, and presumably has determined the public good (or personal gain) that will result from 

bringing the information to light outweighs those risks. Proponents of a reporter’s 

privilege are therefore necessarily arguing that some substantial number of conVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:42 Sep 05, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00060 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\WORK\FULL\061407\36019.000 HJUD1 PsN: 36019
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fidential sources, having otherwise decided to assume all of these more immediate 

and concrete risks of exposure, would be dissuaded from coming forward solely by 

the very slight, incremental additional risk that the reporter might be compelled to 

testify in some hypothetical litigation sometime well off in the future. This seems 

very unlikely. 

It is also reasonable to assume that those potential sources most likely to be deterred by the small additional risk resulting from the absence of a privilege would 

be those sources with the most to fear personally from having their identities revealed. That presumably would be those who fear not merely embarrassment, opprobrium in the eyes of their colleagues, or loss of a job, but criminal prosecution. The 

sources who are apt to be most concerned about being exposed will be those who 

either have engaged in prior criminal conduct or are committing a criminal act by 

disclosing the information to the reporter. But society has little interest in providing 

a shield for communications from those engaged in criminal activity. As the Supreme Court said in Branzburg, upholding a privilege in such cases would be to 

argue that it is more important to write about crime than to do something about 

it. A reporter’s privilege may well have the perverse effect of being most likely to 

promote the types of communications that society has the least interest in encouraging or shielding from disclosure. 

UNCERTAINTY UNDERCUTS THE ABILITY OF A PRIVILEGE TO ENCOURAGE SOURCES

The existence of a privilege will only encourage confidential sources to come forward if they can be relatively certain the privilege will apply. At the time they are 

considering reaching out to a reporter, sources have to be confident that the privilege will protect them. An absolute privilege, or one that is virtually absolute, would 

be the most likely to accomplish this goal. As outlined above, I believe it is extremely unlikely that the presence or absence of a legal privilege (as opposed to a 

reporter’s promise of confidentiality) plays a significant role in a source’s calculations. However, if we assume for argument’s sake that the privilege can encourage 

otherwise reluctant sources to come forward, then I agree with privilege advocates 

that the only type of privilege likely to do this is one that is virtually absolute. As 

the Supreme Court has noted, an uncertain privilege, or one that is applied inconsistently by different courts, is little better than no privilege at all. 

The Free Flow of Information Act does not provide for an absolute privilege. There 

are a number of exceptions to the privilege that apply in certain types of cases. A 

source considering whether to talk to a reporter would therefore be forced to look 

into the future to guess whether a judge, some months or years down the road, 

might decide that one of those exceptions applies. It’s very unlikely that a source 

can do this in a meaningful way. The more uncertainty and exceptions there are 

in a privilege, the less likely it is to give a source any confidence that his identity 

will be protected. Adding to the uncertainty is the fact that a source can’t know in 

advance whether any suit seeking the source’s identity will be filed in federal or 

state court—and if the latter, which state. State privilege statutes and court rulings 

vary widely in terms of what is protected. Accordingly, even if the Free Flow of Information Act were to become law, the overall state of the law on reporter’s privilege 

would still be so uncertain that sources could not have any confidence that a legal 

privilege would ultimately shield them from exposure. In the face of such uncertainty, otherwise reluctant sources will not be moved to reveal what they know. 

CONCERNED SOURCES HAVE THE OPTION OF REMAINING ANONYMOUS

A final factor that undercuts the assumption about sources needing a privilege before they will come forward is the availability of anonymous tips. It is impossible 

to have an anonymous communication with your spouse, doctor, or attorney, or in 

other relationships traditionally protected by an evidentiary privilege. By contrast, 

a source who wants to leak information to a reporter but is worried about being 

identified always has the option of making an anonymous phone call. 

Reporters presumably would argue that an anonymous tip is not as useful or reliable as a known source, and that is probably true. But the issue should be whether 

the press gets the information at all, not whether it gets the information in what 

the press considers to be an ideal form. Once information from an anonymous source 

is in their hands, diligent journalists may start digging to verify the tip. Reporters 

may contact other potential sources, some of whom may not have the same hesitation about speaking out. They may conduct additional research to attempt to 

verify the anonymous information through documents, public records, and the like. 

Even when a confidential source’s identity is known, responsible journalists will 

rarely run a story without doing some additional investigation to attempt to corroboVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:42 Sep 05, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\WORK\FULL\061407\36019.000 HJUD1 PsN: 36019
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rate the source. The same investigation may be done even when the initial source 

has chosen to remain anonymous. 

Any potential confidential sources who are truly ‘‘chilled’’ by the absence of a 

privilege statute, therefore, can always slip their documents over the proverbial 

transom. Given a choice between not revealing the information at all and doing so 

anonymously, most sources who are eager to see the information made public presumably will choose the latter. The public interest in giving the press access to the 

information is served, and the source need not worry about having her identity revealed—at least by the reporter—because the reporter does not know it. This alternative, which is unavailable for any of the more traditional privileged relationships, 

further undercuts the argument that a reporter’s privilege is essential to encourage 

these particular communications. 

A FEDERAL SHIELD LAW WILL NOT KEEP REPORTERS OUT OF JAIL

Many recent calls for a federal reporter’s privilege statute have been fueled by the 

jailing of former New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Supporters maintain a federal law is necessary in order to avoid the specter of journalists being jailed to protect their sources. Passage of the Free Flow of Information Act will not, however, 

accomplish this goal. 

When reporters are jailed in privilege disputes, they are not being punished for 

newsgathering or for the content of anything that they wrote. They are being held 

in contempt for refusing a valid court order to testify. In that regard, they are being 

treated no differently from any other witness who asserts an unsuccessful privilege 

claim. For example, if I am subpoenaed to a grand jury and believe that my testimony would incriminate me, I have a right to assert my Fifth Amendment privilege 

to remain silent. If a court disagrees with my claim and orders me to testify, I may 

appeal that order. If I am unsuccessful, however, I must comply with the court order 

and testify, no matter how firmly convinced I am that the court is wrong. If I refuse, 

I will be held in contempt and likely jailed until I agree to testify. The courts are 

the final arbiters of the privilege question, and the rule of law requires that their 

orders be obeyed. 

Journalists who assert a privilege, however, frequently do not abide by this legal 

process. They appear to believe that their professional obligations require them to 

refuse to reveal their sources regardless of what a court says. Even where there is 

a privilege, therefore, if a court rules it does not apply in a given case, the reporter 

will often refuse to obey the court’s order. Doctors, lawyers, and others in privileged 

relationships routinely honor judicial decisions about whether the privilege applies; 

many members of the media, however, believe they are acting nobly when they decide for themselves what the law should require. 

The Free Flow of Information Act provides for a qualified privilege. That means 

there will be cases where a court rules that, under the terms of the statute, the 

privilege may be overridden and a reporter may be ordered by a court to testify. 

History demonstrates that, when that happens, many reporters will refuse to comply and will be jailed for contempt. Indeed, the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom 

of the Press has advised on their website that if Congress passes a qualified privilege law, reporters who want to protect a source must still be prepared to go to jail 

if a court rules that the privilege does not apply. 

Journalists rely on our legal system to protect them from unjustified libel suits, 

or from those who would impose prior restraints on the press to keep certain material from being published. When it comes to decisions about reporter’s privilege, 

however, many journalists refuse to accept the judgments of that same legal system. 

Reporters expect their adversaries to honor court rulings upholding the privilege, 

but many will not themselves honor court rulings that go against them. In seeking 

passage of the Free Flow of Information Act, therefore, journalists are asking Congress for a new legal protection, while at the same time preparing to defy that law 

themselves when they don’t agree with a judge’s decision. 

Supporters of the privilege have argued that the jailing of journalists in this country is a disgrace and places us in the company of regimes that oppress the media, 

such as China, Burma, or Cuba. I believe these arguments miss the mark. In totalitarian societies, journalists are jailed because of the content of what they write. 

When journalists are jailed in the United States, it is because they are refusing to 

abide by a lawful court order, entered after a full and fair hearing and due process 

of law. Rather than demonstrating that the United States is akin to a totalitarian 

regime, these jailings demonstrate just the opposite: that we are a society governed 

by the rule of law, and that no one gets to pick and choose for herself which laws 

she will obey. 

59

Journalists don’t go to jail simply because of the lack of a federal reporter’s privilege. They go to jail in part due to a professional culture that insists on an absolute 

privilege, chastises reporters who comply with court orders to testify, and lionizes 

those who defy the law as martyrs for the First Amendment. Passage of a federal 

privilege law will not alleviate that problem. 

PARTICULAR CONCERNS ABOUT H.R. 2102

Scope of Protection for Sources of Information 

The proposed legislation provides extremely broad protection for sources. Under 

Section 2(a)(3), a reporter may be compelled to identify a source only: 1) when necessary to prevent imminent and actual harm to national security; 2) when necessary 

to prevent imminent death or significant bodily harm; or 3) when necessary to identify a person who has illegally disclosed: a) a trade secret, b) individually identifiable health information, or c) nonpublic personal information. Unless a case falls 

into one of these categories, the protection for the identity of sources is absolute. 

There is no requirement that confidentiality was requested by the source or promised by the journalist; presumably a reporter could refuse to identify a source even 

if the source had expressed no desire to remain anonymous. 

This protection for sources is much broader than that provided for in the Department of Justice guidelines for subpoenaing members of the media. Under those 

guidelines, the ability to obtain a subpoena for information from a reporter, including confidential source information, is not limited to particular categories of cases. 

A subpoena may be sought in any type of case, provided the need for the information is sufficiently compelling, other avenues for obtaining the information have 

been exhausted, and other requirements of the guidelines have been satisfied. 

In my view, the proposed legislation’s sweeping protection for source identities is 

unwise. For example, assume a heinous crime has been committed, such as a mass 

murder, the bombing of a public building, or a child abduction and rape. The Department of Justice learns that a reporter has spoken with a confidential source 

who either participated in the crime or has critical information about it. All other 

attempts to obtain that information have been unsuccessful. Under this legislation, 

assuming that the death or significant bodily harm has already happened and no 

new injury is imminent, the reporter could not be compelled to reveal that source—

even if that means the criminals are never brought to justice. This would be true 

no matter how serious the crime or how severe the harm that resulted. 

There is a special concern when the leak to a reporter is itself a crime. For example, suppose a source illegally provides classified information to a reporter. Suppose 

further that as a result of the reporter’s story based on that information, significant 

harm results; perhaps troops are killed or a covert investigation of terrorist activity 

is compromised. Assuming that the harm to national security has already taken 

place and no further harm is imminent, under this legislation the reporter could not 

be compelled to identify the lawbreaker. 

In a case where the leak to a reporter is itself a crime, there often will be only 

two witnesses: the reporter and the source. Even if the source’s identity is suspected, he or she will have a Fifth Amendment privilege not to testify. That leaves 

the reporter as the only witness to the crime—and under this legislation, the reporter usually could not be compelled to testify. This would effectively grant immunity from prosecution to many who leak classified information, no matter how grave 

the resulting harm, provided they are careful to leak it only to a journalist (which, 

as discussed below, under this statute could be virtually anyone with an Internet 

connection). As a result, this legislation may well have the undesired effect of increasing illegal leaks of classified information or other illegal communications with 

reporters, by assuring potential leakers that the reporter will not be forced to identify them. A privilege should not shield and encourage conduct that has already 

been determined to be unlawful. 

The response to this argument is often, ‘‘What about the next Pentagon Papers 

case?’’ It is true that the most difficult cases are those where it seems that an illegal 

leak of classified information ended up serving the larger public good. At the same 

time, presumably all agree that, in the interest of national security, the government 

must be able to keep at least some secrets. As a matter of policy, it makes no sense 

to criminalize the disclosure of classified information and then, in a different statute, effectively to immunize those who disclose such information to the media. Part 

of the solution may lie in a re-examination of what materials actually deserve to 

be classified. It may be, though, that those who wish to leak such material in the 

name of the public interest must be willing to run the risk of exposure and prosecution, trusting that public opinion will support them and history will judge them 

kindly. Alternatively, those wishing to leak such material may do so anonymously, 

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avoiding the risk that they will be identified by the reporter (although not, as detailed above, avoiding the more substantial risk that they will be exposed in some 

other way). 

The list of exceptions to the privilege provided in the proposed legislation is also 

open to question. Why, for example, would we allow the privilege to be overcome 

and a confidential source to be discovered in a civil suit concerning trade secrets 

or private health information, but not in a criminal investigation of a large-scale terrorist attack? Surely the public interest in obtaining the information is far greater 

in the latter case than in the former. Crime victims and the general public will be 

hard-pressed to understand why the privilege is allegedly so important that we 

must allow criminals to walk free to preserve it if necessary, and yet that same 

privilege can be breached in order to protect a corporation’s trade secrets. 

If a federal shield law is to be enacted, it would be more appropriate to track the 

Department of Justice guidelines so that, in any type of case in which a court finds 

that the need is sufficiently compelling, the privilege may be overridden, even where 

the identity of a confidential source is involved. A judge should have the power to 

determine in any given case whether the overall public interest weighs in favor of 

the privilege or in favor of disclosure. 

Who May Invoke the Privilege 

One of the most difficult challenges in crafting a federal reporter’s privilege in the 

age of the Internet is deciding to whom the privilege should apply. Even more than 

thirty years ago in Branzburg, the Supreme Court observed that trying to define 

who was a ‘‘newsman’’ deserving of the privilege would be extremely problematic. 

In the simpler Branzburg era of daily newspapers and three television networks, determining the proper scope of a privilege was challenging enough; in the age of the 

Internet, satellite communications, and cable television, that question is exponentially more complicated. 

With other evidentiary privileges, it is generally not difficult to determine whether the person involved in the communication is a member of the class the privilege 

is designed to protect. Lawyers, doctors, and social workers all have certain educational and licensing requirements, and are monitored by professional associations 

to ensure their credentials; whether or not someone is a witness’s spouse likewise 

is usually easy to determine. Anyone, however, can call himself a journalist. There 

are no particular educational requirements, and no licensing regulations. I may set 

up a blog on my home computer, or use desktop publishing to create my own local 

newspaper, and claim the First Amendment’s protection as legitimately as the 

Washington Post.

The traditional approach to limiting the scope of the reporter’s privilege has been 

to focus on the format of the journalism in question. Many state statutes specify the 

types of media that qualify for the privilege; for example, limiting its application to 

those who work for newspapers, magazines, television, or other periodical publications. This approach may have made sense when most of the statutes were drafted, 

before the rise of the Internet and modern communications. Today, though, any statute that sought to limit its application only to certain forms of the media would be 

constitutionally suspect. The legislative creation of a favored class of journalists entitled to a legal benefit would be incompatible with First Amendment values. What’s 

more, a statute that included, for example, newspapers and television but excluded 

Internet bloggers, would be difficult to justify. If the purpose of the privilege is to 

increase the flow of information to the public, on what rational basis could the law 

grant the privilege to a reporter for a small local newspaper with a few hundred 

readers but deny the privilege to the proprietor of a political blog read by hundreds 

of thousands of people each day? 

H.R. 2102 avoids this dilemma by adopting a functional approach to defining who 

qualifies as a journalist. The bill provides that the privilege may be invoked by anyone ‘‘engaged in journalism,’’ which is defined to mean ‘‘the gathering, preparing, 

collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing of 

news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other 

matters of public interest for dissemination to the public.’’ Sec. 4(5). There is no requirement that a person be earning their livelihood as a journalist or be employed 

by or contracted to a media company. There is also no requirement that the information be disseminated through a particular format, such as a newspaper or television station. This definition effectively avoids discriminating among different types 

of media and journalists, and would appear to apply equally to an individual pajama-clad blogger and a reporter for the New York Times.

But although this broad definition of a journalist avoids one dilemma, it creates 

another: the scope of such a privilege in the Internet age is breathtaking. The essence of journalism is, as the bill recognizes, the gathering and transmission of inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:42 Sep 05, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00064 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 H:\WORK\FULL\061407\36019.000 HJUD1 PsN: 36019
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formation to the public. When Branzburg was decided, this usually required at least 

some capital investment or material not readily accessible to the general public: a 

printing press, a book contract, or a job with a newspaper or television station. Now, 

however, all it requires is a computer and an Internet connection, which may be obtained for free at the public library. In the Internet age, anyone can be a journalist. 

A citizen can gather information, post it on the Internet, and thereby disseminate 

it to hundreds of millions around the world. If, for example, someone takes a video 

of a public event with his cell phone and posts it on his MySpace page, there is no 

apparent reason he could not claim the protections of this statute. Millions of people 

who share information on-line could potentially invoke this privilege if for any reason they did not want to testify or turn over evidence in their possession. This will 

result in an enormous amount of information potentially being excluded from the 

justice system, and an enormous amount of additional litigation over the privilege. 

The statute will also invite litigation over what constitutes ‘‘news’’ or ‘‘matters of 

public interest,’’ as parties challenging the privilege try to narrow its terms. This 

will necessarily place courts in the position of making judgments about the importance to the public of particular reporting, based on its content. This also is incompatible with First Amendment values, under which the worth of particular information is to be evaluated by the public in the free marketplace of ideas, not by judicial 

referees. 

The reality is that technology may have outstripped the law to such a degree that 

the entire notion of a journalist’s privilege today is no longer workable. A narrow 

privilege that applied only to certain media formats would likely be unconstitutional, but a broader privilege such as that proposed in H.R. 2102 is far too sweeping to be acceptable. Technology has transformed journalism and has eroded the traditional lines between the institutional press and the overall public marketplace of 

ideas. As those lines break down, so does the rationale for special legal protections 

for the press not enjoyed by the millions of other contributors to the information 

age. 

THE BALCO CASE

I would like to conclude by discussing one of the most significant recent disputes 

concerning the reporter’s privilege, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO) 

steroids case. In that case, two San Francisco Chronicle reporters were held in contempt by a federal judge and were facing jail for refusing to identify a confidential 

source for some of their BALCO reporting. As their case was about to be argued 

in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, their source, defense lawyer Troy 

Ellerman, was identified by other means. On Feb. 15, 2007, Ellerman pleaded guilty 

to obstruction of justice and related charges. As a result, prosecutors withdrew their 

subpoenas of the reporters. 

The BALCO case is frequently cited as evidence that the federal reporter’s privilege is needed. The BALCO reporters themselves have been advocates for the federal privilege law. Far from demonstrating the need for the privilege, however, 

BALCO highlights the damage to the justice system that can occur when a sweeping 

claim of reporter’s privilege is abused by journalists. I submit that the BALCO saga 

does not demonstrate that enacting a federal reporter’s privilege would be good public policy; in fact, it suggests just the opposite. 

In 2002, a federal grand jury in San Francisco began investigating allegations 

that BALCO employees had illegally supplied anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs to a number of professional athletes. On Feb. 12, 2004, the 

grand jury indicted the head of BALCO, Victor Conte, and three other defendants 

for illegal distribution of steroids and other offenses. Troy Ellerman represented one 

of the defendants. 

The Chronicle reporters, Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, had been reporting on the BALCO investigation for some time and had written dozens of articles about it. In June and December of 2004, however, they wrote articles that included verbatim excerpts from the confidential grand jury testimony of several star 

athletes, including sprinter Tim Montgomery and Major League Baseball sluggers 

Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi. It was clear from the articles that the reporters 

had been given unlawful access to grand jury material that was subject to a federal 

judge’s protective order. 

After the first articles appeared, all parties and lawyers involved in the case—

including Ellerman—filed sworn declarations with the court denying responsibility 

for the leaks. In October 2004, the defense lawyers—again including Ellerman—

filed a motion accusing the government of leaking grand jury material to the press. 

They claimed that the resulting publicity had made it impossible for their clients 

to obtain a fair trial, and they argued that the court should dismiss the indictment 

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based on this ‘‘outrageous government misconduct.’’ The court ultimately denied 

their motion, and the BALCO defendants later pleaded guilty to various charges. 

The BALCO judge asked the Justice Department to investigate the illegal leaks. 

During that investigation, the reporters refused to testify before the grand jury, citing their obligation to protect the identity of their confidential source. The judge 

ruled that there was no privilege and ordered the reporters to testify. When they 

refused, the judge held them in contempt. They were prepared to go to jail rather 

than comply with the court’s order, until Ellerman’s guilty plea made that unnecessary. 

It’s now clear exactly what the Chronicle reporters were protecting. Ellerman admitted during his guilty plea that he had illegally allowed Fainaru-Wada to review 

copies of the grand jury testimony on two occasions. Ellerman thus leaked the grand 

jury information to the media himself, denied doing so in a sworn statement to the 

judge, and then tried to get his client’s criminal case dismissed by pointing to the 

resulting newspaper articles and blaming the government for the leaks. This is the 

scheme that ultimately resulted in Ellerman’s guilty plea to obstruction of justice 

and related charges. 

The Chronicle reporters knew that Ellerman had committed a fraud on the court, 

and that he had used their own reporting as a means to execute that fraud. They 

did not come forward to expose this criminal use of their work; in fact, they continued to deal with Ellerman as he committed additional crimes. After Ellerman had 

lied to the judge and filed his motion falsely accusing the government of the leaks, 

Fainaru-Wada met with him again, reviewed more grand jury transcripts, and published more articles with Williams disclosing additional grand jury information. 

Fainaru-Wada and Williams also wrote a successful book about the BALCO scandal. They accepted prestigious journalism awards for their reporting, and were generally seen as heroes by many in the journalism community for their refusal to testify. 

Now that the facts have come to light, the reporters no longer look so noble. Their 

source was not some selfless whistle-blower intent on informing the public about the 

evils of steroids, but a defense lawyer who manipulated the media and committed 

perjury in an unlawful attempt to thwart his client’s criminal prosecution. For their 

part, the reporters went to great lengths to prevent Ellerman from being brought 

to justice, while profiting from his crimes and portraying themselves as victims. 

Supporters argue that the Chronicle reporters were only protecting the public’s 

right to know. They claim that because the steroids scandal was such an important 

story, it was appropriate for the reporters to encourage Ellerman to break the law 

and then help to conceal his crimes. This ‘‘ends justify the means’’ argument is more 

than a little self-serving. If a reporter hired a burglar to break into a private residence, or set up an illegal wiretap, we would not excuse that conduct on the grounds 

that it resulted in an important story. Why, then, would we laud reporters who encouraged and then shielded a criminal who used their work to defraud the criminal 

justice system? 

The public generally does not have a ‘‘right to know’’ what happens inside a grand 

jury. That is the whole point of grand jury secrecy, which exists for a number of 

good reasons, including protecting the rights of criminal suspects. Grand jury witnesses are assured that their testimony will be confidential, which allows them to 

feel comfortable being completely forthcoming. If grand jury witnesses see that their 

testimony may in fact be splashed on the front pages of the newspaper, they may 

be much more likely not to reveal what they know about a criminal matter. The 

irony of a case like BALCO is that in the next investigation involving high-profile 

witnesses, those witnesses may be much more likely to lie in the grand jury or conceal information relevant to the criminal investigation, out of fear that their testimony may be leaked to the media. We can’t consider the public good that may have 

resulted from exposure of the steroids scandal without also considering the harm 

that may have been done to future cases and investigations by this very public 

breach of grand jury secrecy. 

Publishing grand jury information was not in fact necessary in order to inform 

the public about steroid use and BALCO. Williams and Fainaru-Wada wrote more 

than 100 articles about BALCO that did not contain illegally leaked grand jury material. The public was already receiving a wealth of information from these articles, 

the ongoing criminal case, and other sources. Even the particular details about bigname athletes using steroids almost certainly would have come to light eventually. 

Information that explosive does not stay buried forever. There were (and are) multiple investigations, hearings, civil suits, and criminal proceedings exploring the 

facts related to BALCO. The lead defendant, Victor Conte, even began giving television interviews about his conduct. 

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Working with Ellerman and concealing his criminal scheme was not essential to 

the public’s ultimate right to know. It did, however, allow the Chronicle reporters 

to get the ‘‘scoop’’ by reporting certain information first, and to obtain exclusive material and greater publicity for their book. All of this advanced their careers considerably. It appears that the reporters’ desire to be out front on this story and their 

zeal to protect their source at any cost led them to close their eyes to Ellerman’s 

crimes and to the significant harm caused by their own actions. 

Some sources don’t deserve to be protected. At some point, reporters have an obligation to refuse to shield those who manipulate the media for their own improper 

or illegal ends. In my view, the actions of the reporters in the BALCO case were 

deplorable, not heroic. Under H.R. 2102, the reporters would have been free to remain silent even if Ellerman’s scheme to obstruct justice had succeeded and the 

criminal case against the BALCO defendants had been dismissed. Federal law 

should not provide a cover for such behavior.

Mr. CONYERS. And thank you for your presentation. 

Jim Taricani, award-winning investigative reporter from Providence, RI, with a career in the print media, radio, television, and 

who has written and taught extensively. 

We are delighted that you are our final witness for the morning. 

TESTIMONY OF JIM TARICANI, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER, 

WJAR/NBC10 PROVIDENCE, NEW BEDFORD, RI 

Mr. TARICANI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Members of the Committee, for inviting me here to testify. 

My testimony today is that of a working reporter and, like my 

written statement, it is based on my memory and not a review of 

the official court record. Because of that and because I am not a 

lawyer, I would refer you to the court record for details of the proceeding in which I was involved. 

Despite my own experience, nothing I say here today should be 

considered disrespect for our Federal judiciary. 

In February of 2001, when my station was owned and operated 

by NBC News—it is now owned by Media General, Inc.—I heard 

a videotape made by the FBI. The tape showed an FBI informant 

bribing then Providence Mayor Vincent ‘‘Buddy’’ Cianci’s righthand man with a $1,000 cash bribe to get a city contract. 

While the videotape had been put under court seal, the sealing 

order did not pertain to the press or the public. I had obtained the 

tape from a confidential source. This tape showed the most vivid 

example of public corruption I had seen in my three decades as a 

reporter. 

The trial justice in this case prior to trial told the press that even 

after he introduced his evidence, these tapes would still not be 

made public. So my station, along with NBC News, decided to air 

the tape. A special prosecutor was appointed by the Federal judge 

overseeing the case, code named Operation Plunder Dome, to find 

out who gave me the tape. I refused to disclose my confidential 

source to the special prosecutor and was found, first, in civil contempt of court and fined a total of $83,000. 

Eventually, I was found guilty of criminal contempt of court. On 

December 9, 2004, U.S. District Court Judge Earnest Torres, in 

Providence, Rhode Island, sentenced me to 6 months home confinement, even though my source came forward 5 days before my sentencing. 

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The judge said he would have sent me to prison, but he took into 

account the fact that I am a heart transplant recipient and out of 

concern for my health, he sent me home wearing an ankle bracelet. 

I was ordered to disconnect my internet. I was confined to the 

inside of my house. I was not allowed to talk to the press. I was 

not allowed to do any work the court considered professional. I was 

subjected to drug tests every week. 

In other words, I was treated as a common criminal, all for airing a story of great importance to the public. 

Sending journalists to prison might be the remedies courts use 

in Russia or China, but here in America? Sending journalists to 

prison, in my opinion, flies in the face of the freedom of press 

clause in the first amendment. 

I am just one of several reporters in recent years that have been 

sent to prison or threatened with subpoenas for refusing to disclose 

a confidential source. 

I feel, along with many of my fellow journalists, that we need 

shield laws both in the State and Federal levels in order to do our 

job the way the founding fathers would have wanted us to do our 

job. We in the press are supposed to be the watchdogs over our 

Government, yet we are being forced to be de facto investigators 

every time we are ordered to reveal a confidential source that was 

used for a story that allowed the public to be better informed. 

We are supposed to have a free press in this country. The first 

amendment should give us the protection we need to pick our 

sources. The Federal court interpretations have left journalists out 

in the cold. 

Every time a reporter or news organization doesn’t do a story because of fear of being held in criminal contempt, it is the public 

that loses. 

Despite claims by those who oppose a Federal shield law, I have 

personal knowledge of news organizations that are withholding 

publishing or broadcasting stories of public importance because 

they fear costly fines or, worse, seeing their reporters to go to prison. 

Sending reporters to prison for protecting their sources results in 

a chilling effect on the press. 

I spent 121 days in home confinement and, as you know, Judy 

Miller, formerly of the New York Times, spent the same amount of 

time in jail over the Scooter Libby case. 

Two reporters from the San Francisco Chronicle are facing 18 

months in jail for exposing the baseball steroid scandal. Some 33 

States have some form of shield law for reporters. On behalf of my 

fellow journalists, it would be wonderful and pleased to have Congress pass the proposed ‘‘Free Flow of Information Act of 2007.’’ If 

you do, it will help journalists do their jobs without fear of prison 

or outrageous fines. 

The press has a vital role to play in our democracy. If Congress 

passes the shield law, it will go far in preserving that role and will 

help keep the public informed on their Government. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Taricani follows:]

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES TARICANI


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Mr. CONYERS. Thank you so much, all of you. 

The honorable William Safire, we don’t get this opportunity to 

talk much in public. Synthesize for us, if you will. You have heard 

us up here. You have heard a lot of discussion here. What is your 

feeling about the prospects and the significance of this kind of a 

measure that we are examining today? 

Mr. SAFIRE. Well, the prospects you would know better than me. 

The significance, I think I can best express it by——

Mr. CONYERS. Pull the mike a little closer, sir. 

Mr. SAFIRE. Let me give you, what we do in journalism, a specific 

in answer to that. 

I visited Judy Miller in jail a few times. It was not a walk in the 

park. It was a real Federal prison. She slept on a two-inch mattress. She was losing weight. She looked, in her own words, terrible, and she was suffering. Eighty-five days is a long time. 

At that point, I had, in the very beginning, criticized the prosecutor, who had no guidelines to follow. As you know, the Department of Justice has these guidelines, created, curiously enough, by 

John Mitchell. He did not promulgate them. He felt a little guilty 

about what was going on with subpoenas and wiretaps, and so he 

drafted it and Elliot Richardson, after Mitchell went to jail, put 

them into effect. 

But they are meaningless, because whenever a criticism arises or 

a fear of criticism arises in an Attorney General, he simply appoints a special counsel, who is not affected by these guidelines. 

And so what happened was I, at the very beginning, in the New 

York Times, denounced the idea of a runaway prosecutor. That is 

what columnists do. It was a legitimate thing. I took a pop at him, 

because, frankly, I read the law and saw there was no possibility 

of prosecution under that act, because there was no intention to 

harm the United States. 

Plus, as we later learned, the Department of Justice already 

knew who the leaker was. The Under Secretary of State had come 

forward and told them. 

So it was a process crime. It was a crime committed by the result 

of the investigation. 

So here I am visiting my colleague in prison and I wanted to give 

them a real zap. But I was chilled. And what chilled me? The prospect of the prosecutor getting angry. And under the law, he had the 

right then to go not just keep her in jail for the length of the grand 

jury, but to take the next step and cite her for criminal contempt 

and keep her in jail for years. 

And so what effect did that have on a supposedly gutsy columnist? Am I going to take this hostage and endanger her more 

or am I going to shut up? And I elected to shut up. And am I 

ashamed of myself for that? No, but I would hate to see other reporters and columnists subjected to that chill and that shouldn’t be 

happening in America. 

That is happening now. The Justice Department can say, ‘‘Gee, 

there are very few cases.’’ We have just seen an example of somebody incarcerated at home and although these are individual cases, 

we live with individual cases and these cases, I think, militate toward dealing with this terrible trend and that is what responsibility this Committee carries. 

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Mr. CONYERS. Thank you so much. 

Lamar Smith? 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Brand, you mentioned three flaws that the Department of 

Justice sees in this legislation. How, generally, would you correct 

them and how briefly would you correct them? 

Ms. BRAND. Well, as I said in my testimony, we don’t think a 

case has been made for any legislation in this area. So I don’t want 

to give you the wrong impression. There may be ways to fix some 

of the language here, but I am not sure that would—in fact, I know 

it wouldn’t entirely eliminate our concerns with the bill. 

But one of the specific objections that we had was the—and we 

appreciate the effort to put a national security exception in the bill, 

but the exception is no narrowly tailored that it would really only 

apply in cases where prospective harm was going to be averted and 

only where the prospective harm could be shown to be imminent. 

As Mr. Safire noted, imminence is a fairly high standard to meet. 

It is not that it is going to happen soon, it is going to happen right 

away. 

So in the case of a leak of classified national security information 

that already had resulted in death or had resulted in other obvious 

harm to the national security, this exception wouldn’t apply. 

So if there were a case where, having exhausted all other means 

of determining who the leaker was, the only way to do it was talk 

to the reporter, we wouldn’t be able to issue a subpoena in that 

type of case, That is one of our significant concerns. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you. 

Mr. Eliason and Mr. Levine, if someone were to illegally leak employee records, other than perhaps medical records, would their 

identity be protected under this legislation? 

Mr. Levine? 

Mr. LEVINE. I have a little difficulty with the question, Congressman, because it is unclear what law we would be talking about 

being violated here. 

Mr. SMITH. It would be various privacy laws on leaking information about employees, personal information. 

Mr. LEVINE. I am unaware of Federal legislation, other than the 

legislation that is specifically identified in the statute now as an 

exception, Federal law, that would provide a safeguard for private 

employee information. 

There are various State statutes that provide protection in those 

circumstances. And I think it is very important to emphasize and 

for the Committee to understand that this bill only provides a reporter’s privilege in cases arising under Federal law. 

So if someone was prosecuted in a State court or there was a 

civil litigation in a State court involving the situation that you 

have just posited, the reporter could not come in and raise this 

shield law as a protection to prevent him from testifying. 

Mr. SMITH. More generally, do you or Mr. Eliason see any areas 

of confidentiality that are not protected by this legislation that you 

feel should be protected by this legislation? 

Mr. Eliason? 

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Mr. ELIASON. I am sorry, Congressman. Confidentiality in terms 

of information related to the reporter or confidentiality in terms of 

personal privacy? 

Mr. SMITH. In terms of personal privacy. 

Mr. ELIASON. I am sorry. I am not sure I understand what you 

are asking me, Congressman. 

Mr. SMITH. What I was trying to get at was, should this legislation be modified in any as far as making sure that confidentiality 

is protected in ways that are not already covered by the legislation? 

Mr. ELIASON. I think when it comes to the disclosure of information or, frankly, any kind of disclosure, if there is going to be a bill, 

it seems to me it is more appropriate to have one that actually 

more closely follows the Department of Justice guidelines that 

allow the court, not depending on a certain kind of case or not only 

when we have a certain kind of information leaked or not that we 

apply it, but allow the court to look at any kind of case and balance 

the interests and decide whether or not the privilege should be 

upheld. 

So it seems to me when you start carving out exceptions, that 

that becomes more problematic. So for the reasons I have said, I 

don’t believe there is need for a bill at all. But if there were going 

to be one, I think it would be more appropriate to more closely follow the Department of Justice guidelines. 

Mr. SMITH. It sounds to me like both you and Ms. Brand are saying the same thing. It is hard to make the modifications necessary 

in this bill to craft a bill that you all would support, even though 

you have suggestions as to how we might improve it. Is that a fair 

statement? 

Mr. ELIASON. I think that is a fair statement, yes. 

Ms. BRAND. I would add that we are, obviously, always happy to 

look at any language that you have. I wouldn’t totally preclude the 

idea that there might be some acceptable language, but we would, 

obviously, have to see it first. 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. The Chairman of the Courts and Intellectual Property Subcommittee, Howard Berman. 

Mr. BERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Brand, is Mr. Safire correct that a special prosecutor is not 

bound by the guidelines of the Justice Department on this issue? 

Ms. BRAND. Well, the Department’s guideline require the personal approval of the Attorney General for the issuance of a contested subpoena and in a case where the Attorney General is 

recused from the investigation, he would not be able to provide that 

approval. 

So I think that is what takes a case involving a special prosecutor outside of the regular Department of Justice process. 

Mr. BERMAN. Is he bound by the standards of the guidelines in 

terms of weighing and balancing? 

Ms. BRAND. I am not sure what the legal answer to your question 

is. I can tell you that just based on what I have seen publicly, Pat 

Fitzgerald said that he considered himself bound by them and that 

the judge in the District of D.C. found that he had complied with 

them. But I would have to go back and get you a legal answer to 

your question. 

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Mr. BERMAN. I guess perhaps to Mr. Levine, on the national security issue, I want to make sure I understand what, on the surface, seems like a very simple phrase, to prevent imminent and actual harm. 

This is not that use of ‘‘and’’ that says imminent or actual harm, 

right? It is both. The harm has to be quite real and it has to come 

almost immediately. Is that the right interpretation? 

Mr. LEVINE. I would concur in Mr. Safire’s definition of imminent, meaning that it has to be both actual and something that is 

going to——

Mr. BERMAN. It is the word ‘‘actual’’ here. Actual means it is not 

an incidental harm, it is a real harm or it is a harm that already 

happened? 

Mr. LEVINE. It is looking prospectively. It is not looking in the 

past. But I think it is important to emphasize that in determining 

whether or not a source of information to a reporter is necessary 

to prevent imminent future harm, the history of what has happened, that is, if there has been past harm, will certainly be a relevant consideration in making that determination. 

Mr. BERMAN. In terms of actual harm. 

Mr. LEVINE. And the imminence of it. 

Mr. BERMAN. Well, does it? I guess that is my question. 

A story comes up that causes one to reasonably conclude that involved real harm, perhaps including death and injury to people as 

a result of it coming out, the belief is that only someone with access to extremely sensitive, classified, secret information could have 

been the source of that. And the prosecutor now and the investigative agencies think the person who could have done that could do 

something else. And in order to prevent that something else from 

happening, not to punish him for what he did, but to prevent it 

from happening again, we want to find out who that source is. 

How does imminent fit in that context? 

Mr. LEVINE. I think the argument, as you have articulated it, is 

exactly the argument that the prosecutor or the Justice Department in that case would make to the court and would make the 

case that because this person has leaked in the past, because this 

person, based on the information we have, likely has access to information that——

Mr. BERMAN. But the most he can say is it may never happen, 

it may happen sometime in the future, or it might happen imminently. I have no idea whether it is going to happen imminently. 

It is the potential that it could happen and happen imminently 

that I want you to come down on the side of forcing that reporter 

to disclose. 

Mr. LEVINE. I think it is fair to say that the language here is designed to track the language in several Supreme Court decisions 

that talk about the circumstances in which the publication of information relating to the national security or threatening other kinds 

of harm can be prescribed in some way. 

And those cases require an imminence in the sense that there 

needs to be not just conjecture and not just hypothesis, but a real 

reason to believe that something is about to happen or could reasonably be presumed to happen. 

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And I would also add that even in the cases that the Justice Department cotes in its written testimony, I am thinking specifically 

of the Morrison case in the Fourth Circuit, courts emphasize how 

much deference they pay to the Government in matters of national 

security. 

A judge getting a plea from the United States that there is about 

to be serious and imminent harm to the national security is not 

easily going to say, ‘‘I disagree, and we are not going to allow you 

to compel the disclosure of this source.’’ Courts defer on national 

security issues within the realm of reason. 

What this legislation does is, in that area, I think, provide a very 

mild check on the unilateral ability of the Department of Justice 

to make that determination on its own. 

And if I could just take 1 more second and respond to your question to Ms. Brand. In the Valerie Plame investigation, all of the 

journalists who were subpoenaed, including Ms. Miller, made arguments to the court that Mr. Fitzgerald needed to be bound by the 

Justice Department guidelines and that the court needed to review 

whether or not he had, in fact, complied with the guidelines. And 

the courts unanimously held that special counsel and special prosecutors are not bound by the guidelines. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you very much. 

The distinguished gentleman from North Carolina, Howard 

Coble. 

Mr. COBLE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You are giving me 5 minutes this time, right, Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. CONYERS. You get 5 this time. 

Mr. COBLE. I probably won’t use 5. 

Good to have you all with us, folks. 

Ms. Brand, can reporters use information from the confidential 

source without fear of being prosecuted for failure to disclose the 

source’s identity? 

Ms. BRAND. Are you asking whether the reporter can be prosecuted for publishing the information or for refusing to——

Mr. COBLE. Well, for using the information he or she received 

and then failing subsequent to identify the source. 

Ms. BRAND. Well, I think those are two different questions. The 

first question is whether, if you are talking about classified information, for example, publishing that information could subject a reporter to prosecution. That is theoretically possible under the espionage laws. 

Mr. COBLE. You said classified. I said confidential, not necessarily the same. 

Ms. BRAND. Well, then that would depend. In a non-classified 

setting, no, they could not. As for the question about whether they 

could be prosecuted for failure to disclose a source, the only thing 

I can think of is if they were in criminal contempt of court, but that 

would be further down the line. 

Mr. COBLE. Well, that is a vague answer, but maybe that is my 

fault in not—Mr. Safire, do you want to weigh in on——

Ms. BRAND. I may not have answered your question either. 

Mr. COBLE. I see your body language telling me you may want 

to weigh in. 

74

Mr. SAFIRE. My body language just came from an itch. [Laughter.] 

Mr. COBLE. Mr. Levine, you will recall I listed some exceptions 

in my opening statement. Do you believe these exceptions will 

strengthen the reporter’s privilege? 

Mr. SAFIRE. There is no question in my mind, Congressman. 

Mr. COBLE. That it will. 

Mr. SAFIRE. That it will. 

Mr. COBLE. I concur with that. That was a rhetorical question, 

and I thought that was the answer. 

Mr. LEVINE. Happy to oblige. 

Mr. COBLE. All right. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. Safire, let me come back to you. How does access to information impact what stories are covered by the media and is it your 

belief that this bill will necessarily increase reporters’ access to information? 

Mr. SAFIRE. I think it will definitely help reporters who are 

digging in investigative work in doing their job, no doubt about it. 

When you talk about access to information, information is all 

over the place. It comes in in handouts. We get calls from everybody, and too many of us just react to that and cover what is accessible and easy. 

But what distinguishes a journalist is going beyond what is accessible, readily accessible, and reaching out and getting the confidential sources. 

Now, I don’t want to take up your whole 5 minutes, but there 

is a process, a mysterious process that goes on between sources and 

reporters. If you are in this business for a long time, you develop 

these sources. 

I used to go to the golden place for sources, which was at RFK 

Stadium, the Vince Lombardi room, where senators and congressmen and reporters and CIA operatives would all gather before a 

ballgame or at halftime. And over the years, there developed a certain not just camaraderie but trust, mutual trust, and we could call 

each other and bump into each other. 

These were not anonymous sources. These were people that you 

trusted, and that is what goes on in this city, and it goes on in 

every American city. So the access is based on mutual trust, and 

that is what this bill will support. 

Mr. COBLE. Thank you, Mr. Safire. 

Mr. Taricani, I had a similar question to you, and I suspect you 

would concur with what Mr. Safire said, would you not? 

Mr. TARICANI. Sure, absolutely. I have talked to people who are 

very aware of all the ongoing highly publicized cases of reporters 

being found in contempt or being sent to jail and some of these people who could provide information are not. They are very leery 

about what might happen, what they might get tangled up with. 

So, sure, this bill would go a long way in allaying those fears. 

Mr. COBLE. I thank you, sir. 

And before the Chairman drops the hook on me, I am going to 

yield back my time before that red light illuminates. 

Mr. CONYERS. I was going to give you 6 minutes. 

Mr. COBLE. Now you tell me, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. The author of this bill, Rick Boucher? 

75

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Levine, you mentioned in your testimony that there has been 

a cascade of subpoenas to reporters to reveal their confidential 

sources during the course of this decade, and you compared that to 

the previous quarter of a century, when there were a few, if any. 

Can you quantify how many there have been in the last 7 years? 

Mr. LEVINE. In the past 7 years, I don’t know that I can give you 

a precise number. I can tell you that, especially when you are talking about confidential sources, we used to talk about—in my written testimony, I think I have the numbers of reported decisions involving confidential sources for the period of years before 2001, and 

I forget the exact number of years, but there were two reported decisions involving confidential sources issued by Federal courts. 

Since 2001, we have not only had several reporters sent to jail 

by Federal courts, we have had at least a dozen held in contempt. 

We have had at least two dozen that are currently the subject of 

subpoenas or have recently been the subject of subpoenas involving 

confidential sources specifically. 

And search your own memories. This is in stark contrast to what 

happened in the period following Branzburg v. Hayes and up until 

starting with the 2001 incarceration of Vanessa Leggett. 

Mr. BOUCHER. So you are talking about numbers in the mid 30’s 

over the last 6 years or so, as compared to only two, I think you 

mentioned, in the quarter-century or so prior to that. 

Mr. LEVINE. I hesitate to quote an exact number, because it is 

very hard to get data on this. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press did a FOIA request to the Department of Justice 

and got some data only with respect to subpoenas issued by the 

Criminal Division in proceedings in which the Department of Justice was a party. I believe I cite those in my written testimony. 

Mr. BOUCHER. That is good enough for now. Thank you. We will 

make a further inquiry in order to refine that information, to some 

extent. 

Mr. Safire, let me ask you to talk a little bit about how the flow 

of information really is chilled in the absence of this kind of statutory protection. I think in your opening statement, you recited an 

instance in which you yourself felt chilled in the willingness to pursue a series of questions. 

But let’s talk about it from the other perspective. What about the 

source? Is the source chilled in the absence of a statute that 

assures that the reporter cannot be held in contempt and placed in 

jail until that reporter is willing to reveal a source? 

Mr. SAFIRE. I think, definitely, yes. The idea that it is easy for 

a source to simply send in anonymous document and expect any results from it is unrealistic. No good reporter will take a tip or a 

document from an anonymous source that he can’t get back to and 

ask questions of and check out. That is the whole idea of reporting, 

is to see if you can trust our source. 

Now, there are times you can trust a source and times when you 

can’t. Let me give you an example. Bill Casey was an old friend of 

mine. I handled his congressional campaign back in the 1970’s and 

worked with him in the Nixon administration when he was running the SEC, and he was a good source over the years. 

76

When he became the director of CIA, I could call him and get 

some good inside information, and I trusted him. Then I got a tip 

from the FBI saying, ‘‘Hey, you know, your friend Casey, he has 

been meeting with Bob Woodward late at night, often. Just thought 

you would like to know.’’

Well, here is a competitor. So I said to Bill, ‘‘Look, I don’t care 

if you are talking to Woodward, he is a good reporter, but shouldn’t 

you be talking to me, as well?’’ And he said, ‘‘It is not true. I am 

not talking to Woodward.’’

So he lied in his teeth. That put a little note in my head saying, 

‘‘Watch out. Bill’s trust with you is changing.’’ And then during the 

Iran-Contra business, he called me with a story that I felt was 

wrong, and I countered him on it, and he blew up at me. And later 

on, it turned out that he indeed was trying to sell me something 

that wasn’t so, and it had to do, I think, with his brain tumor at 

the time. There was a physical reason for this change. 

But what I am trying to get at here is the trust that is generated 

between reporter and source changes necessarily. You don’t trust 

anybody implicitly, and that person doesn’t trust you implicitly. 

Now, what does this latest trend, which the Justice Department 

denies is a trend but it is a trend, what does that do to the source? 

Is he more likely or less likely to trust a reporter’s confidence? 

And I think it is demonstrable that the leaks, the 

whistleblowings are drying up. People are more cautious about 

talking to reporters and there has been testimony in Congress 

about that very thing. 

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you, Mr. Safire. That is very helpful. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Ric Keller, the gentleman from Florida? 

Mr. KELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I want to appreciate my colleague, Mike Pence, for working on 

this issue for many years and, also, Mr. Boucher for their great 

work in trying to move this forward. 

Overall, I believe it is a very important and positive thing for our 

free press to have access to off-the-record confidential sources to 

get to the truth. On the other hand, I think this bill should be 

modified to make sure that a newspaper cannot defame the heck 

out of a public figure with a false controversial story without having to reveal their sources. 

Let me give you a simple example. Imagine there is a conservative family-value Congressman Jones from Florida, and a rumor 

is going around that he was picked up for drunk driving, with a 

prostitute, and the cops let him go because of his great power, and 

that is why there are no records about it. And the political opponents are whispering that into every reporter’s ears, and the newspapers are salivating over this story, and they have competitive 

pressures. 

And, finally, let’s say the New York Times and the New Republic 

publish a story, ‘‘Congressman Jones caught with a prostitute, 

drunk driving.’’ The story, it turns out, is 100 percent false, and it 

was spread by political opponents, two of whom claimed they had 

information about it and whispered confidentially in the reporter’s 

ears. 

77

Congressman Jones turns around and files a suit in Federal 

court against the New York Times and the New Republic. He uses 

the Federal rules of civil procedure to get access to this information 

about who spread this information. He gets a Federal judge to 

issue a court order. 

What would the newspapers likely do? They would likely hold up 

New York Times v. Sullivan and say, ‘‘This is a public figure. You 

have got to show that it is false, and it is, but also that we recklessly disregarded the truth. And we didn’t recklessly disregard the 

truth. We had two sources. They told us they saw it. They had inside information.’’ ‘‘Well, who are those sources?’’ ‘‘Well, we don’t 

have to tell you. We have a shield bill, and we are not going to 

have to reveal those sources.’’

Now, some might say that would never happen. These are good 

newspapers, and they are not going to allow some renegade reporter to go off and write some scandalous story based on flimsy 

sources, that they would have adult supervision from editors, and 

you would never get that into the paper. Really? You ever heard 

of Jason Blair of the New York Times? You ever heard of Stephen 

Glass of the New Republic? 

I like the idea of the media having as much information as possible, and I think it is pretty true that folks are often more candid 

off the record. But let me ask you, Mr. Eliason, do you have concerns about the possibility that this privilege could tempt newspapers to publish controversial stories that are false? 

Mr. ELIASON. I think it certainly has the potential to have that 

effect, Congressman. I think, again, the breadth of the privilege is 

a concern for any type of case, I think not simply in a libel case, 

that it makes it just difficult, if not impossible, to discover information about sources and——

Mr. KELLER. Let me cut you off, because I am focusing on that 

narrow issue. 

Mr. Safire, you have listened to me. We are in sync with you totally about getting you the best possible information. But what do 

you think about some sort of language in the bill that would make 

it crystal clear that there would be no free rein here for newspapers to be able to publish false, defamatory information about 

public figures and then be able to use this bill as the shield to say, 

‘‘We don’t have to disclose who these weak sources are’’? 

Mr. SAFIRE. I think that would be putting too much into the bill. 

What you are doing is picking several instances of the failures of 

journalism, and you can go back over 250 years and find a lot 

more, but you can’t shoot an elephant gun off at a rabbit. 

Mr. KELLER. What about that poor Congressman Jones? I mean, 

what do you say to him when he said, ‘‘I want you to tell me, New 

York Times, who these people are, because I know that was false. 

I was with my family in Europe. I couldn’t have been pulled over 

with a cop. Tell me who your sources are.’’

Mr. SAFIRE. It wouldn’t have happened in the Times. 

Mr. KELLER. It wouldn’t have happened at the Times? 

Mr. SAFIRE. No. And I can’t speak for the New Republic, but I 

doubt it would have happened there. 

78

There are shortcomings that happen in every institution, whether it is a newspaper or a Congress, and you can’t pass laws to 

make sure that every single thing is covered. 

Mr. KELLER. Where did Jason Blair work? 

Mr. SAFIRE. He worked at the New York Times, and that was 

covered by the Times, a front page, 6,000-word story laying out 

what we did wrong, and we didn’t try to cover it up. I am very sensitive to cover-up. 

But I think in trying to do too much in a bill and cover all possibilities, you vitiate the most important thing you are doing, which 

is reestablishing the trust between sources and reporters. 

Mr. KELLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My time has expired. 

Mr. CONYERS. The Chair recognizes the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime and Judiciary, Bobby Scott of Virginia. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, the problem I have with this legislation is it attempts to try to codify common sense. If you look through the past, 

as Mr. Levine has mentioned, you go through past Democratic and 

Republican administrations, we haven’t needed to try to legislate 

common sense. 

But if you look at the bill, it has got reasonable all over it, public 

interest, the kinds of things that you would have thought would 

have been considered before we got into this thing. 

But the problem we have with this Administration is not whether the policies are consistent with precedent. The question of standard is, has it ever happened before? 

You have picked up people as enemy combatants, United States 

citizens, lock them up, no trial, no charges, searches. And the news 

this week is there have been abuses in searches, wiretapping without probable cause, the invasion in congressional office, never done 

before. 

Maybe it is okay, maybe it isn’t, but has it ever been done before? And so maybe we need to legislate some common sense. I 

don’t know, after this Administration, whether it is going to make 

any difference, because it appears to just codify the practice that 

has been going on for a couple hundred years. 

I have a couple of questions. One, if any of the panelists can help 

on, with the State laws, has there been any problem interpreting 

what a journalist is and what is a journalist and what isn’t, whether a blogger is a journalist? And I assume that has been worked 

out over the States, and maybe it is a problem, maybe it isn’t. 

But before we get to that, I wanted to go back and talk about 

some of the problems in a criminal case. If a person has been indicted on a criminal case and there is a news report that the evidence was planted, we have inside information that the evidence 

was planted, can the reporter—I mean, the way the bill is written, 

you have to satisfy one, two, three and four, which means there has 

got to be imminent death or bodily harm and public interest. 

Can you make the reporter reveal who knows that the evidence 

was planted, if this bill passes? 

Ms. BRAND. I don’t see that as falling within any of the exceptions to the bill. I wouldn’t read any of the exceptions to cover that 

circumstance. 

79

Mr. SCOTT. So the defendant is on trial. What happens in the 

trial? Can he use the hearsay, a reporter said the evidence was 

planted? 

Mr. SAFIRE. Congressman, the rules governing what is admissible in a trial in a criminal case are totally unaffected by this statute. 

Mr. SCOTT. Well, then you have got hearsay, and you can’t admit 

it. 

Mr. SAFIRE. Right. 

Mr. SCOTT. Then what? Does he go to jail, can’t get the evidence 

of his innocence? 

Mr. SAFIRE. No. He can undertake discovery from the Government itself in the context of the discovery rules. And, in fact, the 

press would serve a vital function in that case by reporting that 

story and alerting the defense that that issue was out there for 

them to explore through their own resources. 

What they couldn’t do is go and get that information compelled 

from the reporter who dug it out in the first place. 

Mr. SCOTT. And if you can’t find out who they talked to and who 

told them, what happens? 

Mr. SAFIRE. That would be an issue for the trial judge. If it was 

established that the information was, in fact, planted, it would 

seem to me that the source of the information would be almost beside the point. But that would be an issue for the trial judge to 

work out in the context of the case separate and apart from——

Mr. SCOTT. If you can’t get to the bottom of the story, what happens? 

Mr. SAFIRE. In the context of the criminal prosecution itself? 

Mr. SCOTT. Right. 

Mr. SAFIRE. If the defendant cannot establish evidence, then, of 

course, he can’t admit evidence on the point. But he is not powerless in his ability to establish and seek out evidence simply because 

he can’t get that from the source. 

Mr. SCOTT. So the reporter would be shielded in that case. 

In a civil case, if a news report says essentially that the defendant has been negligent and there is no public interest and no imminent harm involved and the only issue is whether the plaintiff gets 

the money, there is not a whole lot of public interest there, what 

happens in that civil trial? Is the reporter shielded, the information 

shielded in that case? 

Mr. SAFIRE. As I read the bill, Congressman, in most civil cases, 

the identities of confidential sources will be protected for the very 

good reason that you just articulated, that if you weigh the public 

interest and, presumably, information about public concern, about 

a matter of public concern being disseminated against the pecuniary interest of a civil litigant in recovering money damages, the 

public interest ought to, it seems to me, win out. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. CONYERS. Darrell Issa from California? 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think since the Chairman noted the presence of a Pulitzer Prize 

winner, I am going to start, put you on the spot. 

Mr. Safire, the balance between the right and, for that matter, 

the unquestioned integrity of the New York Times, if somebody is 

80

going to spend 1 day in jail, 1 day in jail as a result of the inability 

to get a source, or 100 days or 1,000 days or the rest of their life 

or have a needle put in their arm, at what point does the balance 

switch toward that individual who will be incarcerated or executed 

from the right of a reporter to not reveal a source? 

Mr. SAFIRE. Well, if you are dealing with the principle, the principle is you don’t reveal your source and you hang tough and——

Mr. ISSA. So I am going to take you at your word and I am going 

to put words in your mouth, if you don’t mind, because this is Congress after all. It is okay for someone to get a needle in their arm 

and be executed if it preserves the principle that a reporter not reveal their source. 

Mr. SAFIRE. You are talking about the death penalty. 

Mr. ISSA. Well, I started with 1 day, then 100 days and 1,000 

days, and I ended up with a needle in the arm. I asked you, for 

good reason, at what point does the balance of the individual to be 

able to prove—and Mr. Scott started off this very well—at what 

point does it switch? 

I am concerned. I don’t want to see any reporter ever put in jail 

again. I want to see every reporter know, if possible, that there is 

a bright line: Here you have to answer, here you don’t have to answer. 

I would hope that the shield law helped do that, not just by saying when you don’t have to, in which case a judge not put them 

in jail, but, also, if you are not covered by it, then put it out. 

I want to make sure that we are not going to provide a shield 

today and the industry from which you come say, ‘‘Well, that shield 

is only partially right and, therefore, we have everything Congress 

gave us and everything else.’’

Mr. SAFIRE. I think what we are talking about here is a balance 

of interests and just as we have had the balance between the first 

amendment and the sixth amendment. That is decided in courts, 

and you don’t just say, ‘‘This is the way it has got to be’’ and take 

an absolute 100 percent view. 

What you are doing here is working out an arrangement where 

you don’t undermine the freedom of the press and, at the same 

time, you don’t codify it to such an extent that you can uncodify 

it later. 

Mr. ISSA. But as of right now—and maybe I will go to Ms. 

Brand—as of right now, as I understand the legislation, it is silent 

as to this. If I am going to face a 5-year prison sentence and a news 

article indicates that, by its article, that a source would be able to 

free me, but it is hearsay, right now I can’t get to that under this 

statute. 

I am not having any harm, because it doesn’t define a day, a 

week, a month or life in jail as harm, does it? 

Ms. BRAND. That is right. I would read the bill the same way 

that you read it. 

There are two problems there. One is the sixth amendment problem, and presumably courts would find the law unconstitutional as 

applied if it were infringing upon a defendant’s sixth amendment 

rights, but query whether Congress wants to enact a law where 

courts would have to go through that exercise. 

81

And, secondly, the definition of journalism in this bill is so broad 

that we are not talking about the New York Times alone. I have 

to think that some New York Times reporters might have a conscience that would prevent them from allowing someone to be executed in the circumstances you mentioned, but——

Mr. ISSA. They might leak the source to somebody else, and 

somebody else could do it. 

Ms. BRAND. Well, I don’t know, but I have a hard time believing 

that someone would actually be executed because the New York 

Times was sitting on a source, but——

Mr. ISSA. Thanks for that. 

Ms. BRAND [continuing]. The definition in the statute——

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Safire, I wanted you to say that you wouldn’t let 

someone be executed. 

Ms. BRAND. The definition is just so broad that it really includes 

anybody who wants to post something to the Web. So if you want 

to protect yourself from having to provide evidence in a grand jury 

or a criminal trial, make yourself a journalist by posting something 

to the Web. 

Mr. ISSA. My final question in the remaining time is it also 

doesn’t have an in camera discussion. It doesn’t talk about, if you 

will, an absolute right for at least the judge to be able to determine 

through getting sufficient information in camera. 

And that is one of the protections I am hoping we add to this, 

is that no matter what the first test, second test, hopefully, and it 

doesn’t say it right now, I just want to confirm that, the idea that 

the source can be revealed to the judge in camera and that that 

source then is still protected, but at least you can go through the 

procedure of finding out, in the case of the examples we were given, 

whether or not those sources exist. 

Is that also correct, that it is not in the bill? 

Ms. BRAND. Yes. There is no ex parte or in camera provision in 

this bill. 

Mr. ISSA. Mr. Chairman, hopefully, those are the two areas that 

we will work on between now and the time it hits the floor. 

Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. I thank the gentleman. 

Sheila Jackson Lee, the gentlelady from Houston, Texas? 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Mr. Chairman, thank you. 

I cannot imagine, in this climate of national security issues and 

cloak-and-dagger matters that seem to confront of our White 

House, to have chosen a better time for this very important discussion and this very important legislation. 

And I thank both the Chairman and the Ranking Member, but 

I also want to thank the proponents of this legislation. Many of us 

have engaged in initiatives like this in the past, and it is now very 

good that we can come together. 

I do want to indicate that my distinguished friend from California may have missed the direct language, and I am not sure if 

the representative from the Department of Justice might have 

missed it as well, but in the bill, there are two distinct provisions 

that I think are key in this backdrop of post-9/11. 

And it is, in fact, an issue, a disclosure provision that talks about 

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ously, that is the glaring war on terror. And then it also indicates 

that there should be disclosure if that is necessary to prevent imminent death or significant bodily harm, with the objective to prevent such death or harm. 

So I think, although all legislative initiatives can be made better 

and more defined, that there is that element. 

Let me just pose this framework for you. I think Texas raises 

itself as a center of an issue or a particular individual, Professor 

Vanessa Leggett, in my district, who, after 4 years researching the 

question of a death in Texas, was asked by a local newspaper to 

reveal sources or the law enforcement, but, by the way, had all the 

information, and found herself locked up in the Federal detention 

facility for a very long time. 

We spent time together. I visited her and expressed the outrage 

as we pursued her release. We have seen that happen over and 

over again. And so I think we are here at this place because there 

is some value to the first amendment. 

Mr. Safire, if I might ask you, because we are now in a technological atmosphere, and so would you consider the journalism definition to cover bloggers and Internet messaging and others who 

proliferate by the second? 

And I yield to you. 

Mr. SAFIRE. I would always resist the Government saying, ‘‘This 

is what a journalist is.’’ And the only thing I liked about Justice 

Byron White’s decision was the reference to ‘‘the lonely pamphleteer,’’ who has to be covered, as well as the great newspapers. 

I think that the definition you have here is a good one, because 

it goes to: Who is this aimed at? What do you do as a journalist? 

What you do as a journalist is gather information for the public. 

You don’t gather information for a private enterprise or a private 

source or a private or secret organization. 

The whole purpose of, whether you are a blogger or whether you 

are the New York Times or CBS or the Wall Street Journal, if what 

you are doing is aimed at informing the public, then you are a journalist, whether you get paid for it or not. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. I can’t see your name, the last gentleman, if 

you would answer, and I apologize. 

Mr. TARICANI. Taricani. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you. I can’t see it turned around. 

Thank you. If you would answer the same question. Do you consider bloggers, Internet messengers and others——

Mr. TARICANI. Yes. I agree with Mr. Safire, but the key there, as 

Mr. Safire said, is people who gather information and I would add 

that the information goes through some type of an editing process 

in most cases or some type of verification process and is dispensed 

for the public. 

Instant messenging is not necessarily meant to be dispensed to 

the public and other forms of electronic communication, but in the 

spirit of our original pamphleteer, sure. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. You have no fear then that legislation like 

this that would cover that expanse would be jeopardizing one’s life 

and limb or the national security of this Nation. 

Mr. TARICANI. No. They would be held to the same standards by 

a court, I would imagine. I am not a lawyer. That they would have 

83

to conform to this bill and if they are acting as a journalist, then 

they would fall under the bill. But, again, I am not a lawyer. That 

is just my own point of view. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Ms. Brand, could you find comfort in the exemptions that are here and see any reason why the first amendment should not be upheld for the protection of the press, which 

has been a sacred right of this country? 

Ms. BRAND. Well, with respect to the definition of journalism, I 

think I understand why the drafters of the bill made it so broad. 

Presumably you want to avoid the first amendment problem that 

you would have if you tried to define who the press was, because 

like Mr. Safire said, it ranges from the lonely pamphleteer to the 

New York Times. 

But the problem then, and this is something that the Supreme 

Court recognized in Branzburg, when they talked about the difficulties of drawing lines about who is a journalist, because the definition must be so broad to capture all legitimate journalists, is 

that it captures almost everybody else too. 

And so you then have a situation where, if the Government 

needs critical evidence in a criminal investigation, they have to go 

through the procedures of this bill for anybody who decides that 

they want to try to avoid giving it to the Government by posting 

that information to the web or labeling themselves a journalist. 

And so you are between a bit of a rock and a hard place. It is 

difficult to define the press narrowly without implicating the first 

amendment, but if you define it broadly, you cause significant problems for law enforcement. 

Ms. JACKSON LEE. Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is difficult, but not 

impossible. I think that is the basis framework of this legislation. 

I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you. 

Mr. Trent Franks, Ranking Member on the Constitution Subcommittee, from Arizona. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you for the courtesy here, Mr. Pence. 

Mr. Chairman, I know all of us have a deep commitment to freedom of the press, certainly I do, and I suppose, like many Members 

of the Committee, we are having a little difficult time wrapping our 

brain completely around this one. 

But it occurs to me that we have been without a shield law on 

the Federal level, as I understand, for about 200 years and that the 

ostensible rationale for this bill, again, very well-meaning, is that 

there is a surge in subpoenas for reporters to reveal their sources 

and I think at least there is some indication that there is more 

than perhaps there has been in recent years. 

But I am wondering if that could be traced to perhaps the post9/11 environment that we live in. Is there any historical precedent, 

Ms. Brand, related to, say, when we were dealing with World War 

II or other conflicts that required intense press activity that had 

to do with national security? 

Because my concern here is simply this. I know there has been 

some discussion about who becomes a journalist, but it occurs to 

me that Hamas outlets certainly would be covered under this, that 

84

they would be—and I am sure that we would have probably responsible judiciary that would try to sort through all of that. 

But I do think that there are some national security components 

here and I am just wondering, number one, is this surge, is it—

I know there is debate, but give me your perspective. Is it real? Is 

the rationale for this needed now something that is real? 

And, number two, the implications as far as national security especially as it relates to someone like—outlets like Hamas that 

could really have a lot more latitude under this, unless I am just 

completely misunderstanding the situation. 

So I will give you a shot here. 

Ms. BRAND. With respect to the number of subpoenas, the only 

information I can provide relates to subpoenas issued by the Department of Justice through our process that I described earlier. 

So whether courts are appointing special prosecutors who are 

issuing more subpoenas or whether private litigants are issuing 

more subpoenas, that I can’t answer because I don’t have that information in hand. 

But I can tell you that with respect to source-related subpoenas, 

in particular, there have only been those subpoenas in four matters 

since 2001. And since 1991, when the Department started keeping 

that information, it has happened in 19 cases. So I don’t view that 

as a surge, at least with respect to Department of Justice. 

And to go to your second point, we are very concerned, about the 

broad definition of journalism for a variety of reasons, but specifically including the one you mentioned. Terrorist organizations do 

have media components, some of them do. 

For example, Hezbollah’s media arm has been separately designated as a terrorist organization. Other terrorist organizations 

have newsletters or other media outlets. All of those entities are 

covered by this bill. 

Mr. FRANKS. Well, Mr. Chairman, let me just say I think it 

might be a wise thing for the Committee to ask both like Mr. Levine and Ms. Brand to give us, number one, what you think is the 

core most important need in the bill that you think needs to be addressed. 

In your case, Ms. Brand, what you think is some type of an 

amendment or some type of modification that might address the 

concerns that you have about the over-broad definition of journalism and, also, perhaps even some of the underlying elements of 

the bill. 

Because I think that while I support deeply the commitment to 

freedom of the press, that the New York Times—I know we are not 

talking about what they did with information they had, but I think 

that in revealing some of our NSA terrorist surveillance programs 

and things of this nature, I think they broke the law. 

I think that they harmed national security, and I think it is very 

important that we tread very carefully on something that has been 

in place for 200 years and make sure that we are acting wisely. 

And I would hope that there would be some input on the part 

of those on the panel that have relevant information to make sure 

that when we go to markup here, that we have the best bill possible. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

85

Mr. CONYERS. Thank you, sir. 

A former State prosecutor, in his earlier life, William Delahunt. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just would note for the record that included in the bill is a national security exception, in an effort to respond to my friend from 

Arizona. 

And I would note he uses the term ‘‘surge.’’ I think what we are 

confronting here, as we step back and look at the current scene, is 

a surge in secrecy. And let me pose this to the panel and maybe 

the journalists on the panel can respond. 

Mr. Leonard, who heads the National Archives, indicated that 

there has been an explosion in the number of documents that are 

now classified and he indicated concern about that. We have had 

our own experiences here in Congress dealing with the executive 

branch in terms of information coming to Congress. 

It certainly hasn’t been an Administration or a Justice Department that has been forthcoming. Let me just cite one example. 

There were a series of hearings conducted by the Government 

Reform Committee about misconduct in the Boston office of the 

FBI. There was a 40-year-old memorandum, prosecutorial memorandum. The then-Chairman of the Committee, Congressman Burton, certainly no, he wouldn’t describe himself as some liberal from 

the Northeast, had to threaten contempt to get that before the 

Committee. 

So I think what we have here is really an obsession with secrecy 

in terms of this Administration. It goes, it comes depending on the 

Administration. But what I find particularly interesting, for example, is there has been information that was classified, that was 

then declassified and months, even years later, is reclassified. 

I think that can only be described as absurd. It has a certain 

‘‘Alice in Wonderland’’ quality to it; up is down, and down is up. 

But the title of this bill—and I intend to support the bill, and I 

think we can tweak it. I think, Ms. Brand, you mentioned the fact 

that there is no in camera provision in the bill to deal with sensitive issues. I would hope that one would infer that that would be 

within the discretion of the trial judge. 

Do you agree with that? 

Ms. BRAND. It would depend on the circumstances, I think. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Maybe, okay. I understand that. Well, then I 

think that we can work with the sponsors of the legislation and put 

that in this particular bill. 

Mr. SAFIRE. Sir, can I just respond to the basic point that you 

make, which is absolutely right, that——

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, I am glad that you agree with me, Mr. 

Safire. 

Mr. SAFIRE. It is so easy to classify and so difficult to declassify. 

I remember I was working on a speech on Vietnam for Nixon, and 

I had a bunch of documents, and I wrote my speech and then I sent 

it in to him to edit, and I put on the top of it, ‘‘Top-secret eyes 

only.’’

And I waited to get the draft back from the President, and nothing happened for a couple of days, and the speech was about to be 

made, and I went to Bob Haldeman and I said, ‘‘Hey, where is the 

draft of the speech? I have to incorporate the President’s edition.’’

86

And he said, ‘‘Look, you typed ’top-secret eyes only’ on the top, 

and you are not cleared for top-secret eyes only.’’ And that is there 

today, and nobody can get at it. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. There is an excellent op-ed piece by Bruce Fine 

in the June 13th edition of the Washington Times. It is entitled 

‘‘Secret Government.’’ And he indicates when—we here on this 

Committee inquired of a representative of the Justice Department 

when the Department of Justice and the Administration decided 

that the authorization to use military force, allowing us to go into 

Iraq, when that date became a rationale for the so-called terrorist 

surveillance initiative, simply the date. And their response was, 

‘‘We cannot discuss the operational details or history of the terrorist surveillance program,’’ just the date. I mean, common sense 

would tell you that is absurd. 

So what we have is a growing sense of secrecy or growing secrecy 

within the executive branch. It could be true of this Administration 

or the next one or those in the past, and the American public is 

being denied information that they have to have to make informed 

decisions. 

It is the predicate, if you will, for the need for this law, in my 

judgment, and until we address it, we are putting at risk our democracy. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. CONYERS. Anyone want to comment on that before his time 

has expired? 

Mr. ELIASON. My only comment on that would be that there may 

well be an issue about what material gets classified, but I would 

just suggest that a bill like this is not the best way to address that 

issue. Because, assuming we all agree that there are some things 

that do deserve to be classified, then what this bill does is make 

it much easier for people to leak that kind of information, as well, 

and effectively immunize them from prosecution if they do. 

And so it leaves in the hands of sources and journalists the sort 

of decision about what should be classified and what isn’t. So if we 

think there is a problem with too much material being classified, 

I would suggest there may be better ways to approach that problem. 

Mr. SAFIRE. Mr. Chairman, could I take some issue with that? 

The premise of a lot of this discussion and what Mr. Eliason just 

said is that short of compelling a reporter to disclose the identity 

of a source, you are immunizing criminal conduct or immunizing 

the person who discloses classified information, that is simply not 

true. 

The Federal Government has awesome prosecutorial powers at 

its disposal to investigate leaks internally. It can do that without 

going after the reporter. And more importantly, what is missed in 

this discussion is that when a reporter writes a story that exposes 

some information of public importance, by definition, that scoop, if 

you will, is the way the public is learning about the information. 

Without that source coming forward, nobody would ever know 

about the information. It would remain secret. So there would be 

no information out there for people to act upon. 

In the criminal context, the hypothetical that was given earlier 

about the person on death row, if the press didn’t come forward—

87

if a source didn’t feel comfortable going to the press and disclosing 

that information that exculpates the person on death row, he would 

remain silent. No one would ever know about it. 

You need the press to be able to disclose that information and 

you need people feeling comfortable that their confidences are going 

to be kept secret and protected. 

Ms. BRAND. Can I jump in there, with the leave of the Chairman? 

I think that Mr. Levine overestimates the ease with which the 

Government can internally investigate leaks. It is often very difficult to investigate those leaks. And the Department’s guidelines 

already require that before a subpoena to the media can be considered, the prosecutor and the investigators have considered and exhausted all other sources of information. 

So we are only talking about a subpoena to the media when the 

Government can’t get the information any other way. 

And the second point I would make is that it is not accurate to 

say that leaking information to the media is the only way for information to get out or for an employee to come forward and blow the 

whistle. There is an Intelligence Committee Whistleblower Protection Act of 1998 that applies to many of the intelligence community’s agencies. It allows employees to talk to their agency’s inspector general and, if that person does nothing, to come to the intelligence committees of Congress. 

All the other agencies of Government have their own inspectors 

general to whom employees can go. And employees can go to Congress. It is just not the case that leaking classified information to 

the press is the only way to be a whistleblower. 

Mr. CONYERS. You really raised the important question, Mr. 

Delahunt. I am glad that you did. 

Before I call on the author of the bill, Mike Pence, who is acting 

Ranking Member, I want to acknowledge the presence of Martha 

Reeves, the Councilwoman from Detroit, who is here on a completely different matter, trying to get royalties from performances 

of music. She is a Motown star, a constituent of mine, and I am 

going to ask her to meet with my staff while we continue this hearing. 

And I thank you for coming and joining us. I know you have to 

leave at 12:30. So if you would, they will take you back to the back 

where we meet, and thank you for being with us. 

Mike Pence, author of the measure before us, we thank you so 

much for the work that you have done. 

Mr. PENCE. Thank you, Chairman, and I really want to thank 

this entire panel and your leadership in assembling these very 

thoughtful voices on this issue. 

I keep going back to the actual Ranking Member’s comments 

that he had qualified enthusiasm for this bill and my friends at the 

Department of Justice might know that my enthusiasm is qualified. I understand that different from the 49 States that have protections either in statute or in common law today, none of them are 

charged with the protection of the Nation and our national defense. 

There are unique challenges, and I want to recognize that. 

88

I want to thank you, Ms. Brand, for your service to the country 

as Assistant Attorney General, but your testimony today, as well 

as the balance of this panel. 

I would like to direct my question first to you. It may be helpful 

to point out that the legislation specifically as to your most immediate point that you made about the DOJ guidelines, under the 

Boucher-Pence bill, the party seeking to compel production would 

have to show that they had ‘‘exhausted all reasonable alternative 

sources,’’ as well, and that very much is among many of the provisions of our legislation that is reflective of the DOJ guidelines, and 

I want to encourage you with that. 

My question is there clearly is a dispute over whether this is a 

solution in search of a problem or whether this is an avalanche, as 

one of the witnesses testified. I know that in response to a 2006 

Freedom of Information request from the Reporters Committee, 

they were informed that there were some 65 requests for media 

subpoenas that were approved by the Attorney General. 

I don’t want to get into the numbers game here. 

Ms. BRAND. The 19 I mentioned are source-related information. 

So that may be a different——

Mr. PENCE. Maybe source-related. Thank you. That is helpful. 

Ms. BRAND. I don’t know. 

Mr. PENCE. In any event, I guess my question would be very 

basic and then I really want to shift, if I can, to this issue of the 

chilling effect and whether it exists or doesn’t exist. 

You have testified, as others have, and Mr. Comey last year before the Senate testified that the DOJ guidelines—it is the judgment of the Department that they are working well. 

If that is the case, why not just codify the guidelines so that they 

apply to special prosecutors and civil litigants? Is there a sense in 

the Justice Department that creating statutory certainty to otherwise internal guidelines of the Department is contrary to the public 

interest or could you speak to that briefly? 

Ms. BRAND. Well, we appreciate that the bill takes a lot of the 

language from the DOJ guidelines. It doesn’t quite codify the guidelines, though. It is different in a couple of important respects. 

Mr. PENCE. That is true. 

Ms. BRAND. The flexibility point that you mention is one issue. 

But the way the process works now, the Department gets approval 

from the Attorney General in a case where a subpoena is issued 

to the media, and then the media can move to quash. In that case, 

the burden of proof is on the media to show that the subpoena was 

burdensome or oppressive. 

The other issue is that this bill would require the Government 

to show by a preponderance of the evidence that certain things 

have been done, that certain conditions have been met. 

The preponderance of the evidence standard is an evidentiary 

standard that usually applies at the end of a trial or proceeding. 

The standard at the beginning stages of an investigation, when you 

might be using a subpoena, is usually relevance or a much lower 

standard. And so those are a couple of issues that we have concerns about. 

Mr. PENCE. Let me raise one more question before my time is up. 

Mr. SAFIRE. Can I answer that one a little bit more? 

89

Mr. PENCE. Most certainly. 

Mr. SAFIRE. The Government is not just the Justice Department 

and when you talk about codifying the Justice Department’s guidelines, what about the guidelines throughout the rest of the Government? 

The only way you can do that is through a law and there are 

subpoenas, administrative subpoenas issued by agencies and other 

departments of Government that we haven’t even discussed at all 

today. And the only way you can get at that is for Congress to step 

up to the plate. 

Mr. PENCE. Thank you. Let me shift to the next question. 

There is really a startling and interesting contrast in the testimony today, and that is that, Mr. Safire, you testified that you perceive that in the marketplace of the national Government today, 

there is a ‘‘coercive chill.’’ I think to borrow from your testimony, 

you said that it is happening right now. 

By contrast, Professor Eliason testified that with regard to a 

chilling effect, that the current law or the possibility of disclosure 

by a source would have, I think your phrase was, ‘‘very little role 

in a source’s decision to come forward.’’

I would observe that in the wake of seeing an American journalist incarcerated for 85 days, in the wake of an extraordinary 

trial that just came to conclusion that found, at its genesis, a Chief 

of Staff of the Vice President of the United States who told a reporter something off the record and that reporter was unable to 

protect the identity of their source, not speaking to the perjury 

charges or the validity thereof. 

I am speaking at the very essence, reporters in this city, it seems 

to me, and, more importantly, public men and women, people working in Government are getting something of a deafening message 

that off the record ain’t off the record. 

And I really would like to ask—and maybe, Mr. Safire, you first, 

and I would love to hear from Mr. Taricani—in the real world, 

ought the public to be concerned today that there is a coercive chill 

that is beginning to settle on Washington, D.C., that will act as a 

barrier to the free flow of information to the public in the future? 

And I would be happy to let the professor address this. 

Does the reality of this present progeny of cases and subpoenas 

and incarcerations have, in the real world, little effect on people’s——

Mr. SAFIRE. Well, I would point out the professor is not chilled, 

and good for you, Professor. I am chilled. I have seen it happen, 

and I have seen it happen all across the country among reporters 

who read about what has happened, who saw the Judy Miller case 

come to fruition and what happened in it. 

And maybe we should get away from the word ‘‘chilled,’’ Justice 

Brennan’s word, and get to what it really is, and that is scared. We 

don’t want to go jail. We don’t want to be bankrupted. And certainly the publishers of our newspapers don’t want huge fines coming from contempt citations. 

This is a problem. This is not a fake problem. This is not a tangential problem. This goes right to the heart of gathering news. 

And the only way to handle it is to do for the national Government what the States have done for the State governments, and it 

90

works there. And all the give-and-take that is required in developing case law is being done in the States, and what we have happen now is in the Federal system. And the only way that we are 

going to make that happen is to take up the Supreme Court on its 

challenge to the Congress, which is if you want to fix this, you fix 

it. 

It is not a constitutional issue. It is something that Congress can 

handle, and it hasn’t had to handle it before, because the problem 

didn’t emerge. It has emerged now, and I say it is up to you to fix 

it. 

Mr. PENCE. Mr. Taricani or the professor, I would be happy to 

hear from either one. 

Mr. TARICANI. Sure. In a very real-world example, many news organizations, like the one I work for, because of these cases, when 

we sit face-to-face with a potential source now, I have to tell that 

source, before they give me any information, that my company will 

back up my promise of confidentiality and, in my region, up until 

the First Circuit of Appeals, and if we lose there, then we are going 

to ask you to sign an affidavit saying that you will come forward. 

Well, you can imagine the chilling effect on that source. Most 

sources are just going to laugh it off and walk away. 

So that is what is happening all across the country. Obviously, 

I don’t work for a national news organization, but I serve my community and that is a definite chilling effect on our ability to gather 

information and dispense it to the public. 

Mr. PENCE. Professor, since I paraphrased you, I wanted to give 

you a chance to speak. 

Mr. ELIASON. Thank you, Congressman. A couple of different 

points. 

First of all, as I said in my written testimony, I just don’t think 

history really bears out the idea of the chilling effect. And just look 

at the most recent history, for example. While the Judith Miller 

case was going and there was this very public demonstration of a 

journalist being jailed and journalists being compelled to give up 

their sources, we had a lot of new leaks about secret CIA prisons 

and unlawful surveillance by the Government and other stories. So 

it is not as though sources sort of dried up, even when that highprofile case was going on. 

I think another important point is that sources face a lot of risks. 

Leaking is never going to be risk-free, and, frankly, most sources 

are exposed by something other than the reporter having to testify. 

So when they are looking at this whole basket of risks that they 

are facing when deciding whether or not to talk to a journalist, 

really, the fact that the journalist might be compelled to testify is 

one of the most remote risks. And even if there is a law, they can’t 

look at it and say, ‘‘Well, 2 years from now, will a judge say one 

of these exceptions applies and so they are going to make the reporter testify anyway?’’

So it is not likely to have a substantial effect on their decision. 

And then a final thing I think that is important to remember about 

this handful of high profile cases we have had in the last few 

years—and it really is a handful, I think we have to recognize, in 

terms of the thousands and thousands of stories reported each day. 

91

You have heard everybody here talk about the same three or four 

cases all morning. It really is a handful of cases and, by and large, 

those cases involved sources that were committing wrongdoing by 

leaking to the press. 

In the Judith Miller case, you had a source leaking classified information about the CIA. In BALCO, you had a source committing 

perjury and obstruction of justice and violating a court order. Mr. 

Taricani’s case was the same thing, violating a court protective 

order. 

And as Judge Tatel pointed out in the Judith Miller case—or 

Wen Ho Lee, sources violating the Privacy Act. These are sources 

that are committing misconduct by their very conversation with the 

reporter, and as Judge Tatel pointed out in the Judith Miller case, 

if those kind of leaks are chilled, that is a good thing. That is what 

the public interest requires. 

Mr. BOUCHER. [Presiding.] Mr. Eliason, our time is growing a bit 

short here. 

Mr. ELIASON. Thank you. 

Mr. BOUCHER. And we have exhausted the time for this question 

period. 

Mr. PENCE. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Pence. 

The gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Johnson, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you. 

Today, in a climate where we have had consolidation of media interests to where you have one company that owns the means of 

media in—or you have one or two companies may be the sole 

sources of information for people, both print, radio, TV, all of these 

things being consolidated and you are starting to get your news 

through and your information through a smaller funnel, if you will, 

and then the media basically in bed with the public officials, public 

officials leak information to the press to achieve a shaping of public 

opinion and the press is a willing participant, because the more inside information they have, then the more news that they can—or 

‘‘news’’ that can be generated and ratings are increased. 

And the news and information that we get is, a lot of times, biased. It is not fair. It is in favor of the conservative viewpoint, 

sometimes the liberal viewpoint or progressive viewpoint, whatever 

one might want to call it. 

But this is where we find ourselves now. It is not a pure pursuit 

that we find the media in at this time. And then we have got a 

number of different areas of concern here. We have got Government leaks and the pursuit of information by the Government as 

to who leaked the information. 

We have got those classes of issues. We have got the issue of 

whether or not there should be immunization of the press from 

having to reveal sources in criminal cases where an accused is 

seeking to defend themselves or where the Government is trying to 

prosecute someone. 

We have got the whistleblower cases. We have got other civil 

cases involving trade secrets, which, by the way, are included in 

this new legislation. And then we have this legislation which seeks 

to apply a one-size-fits-all approach to all of these issues that I just 

92

raised and this legislation would provide that instead of the 

issuance of a subpoena and then a motion to quash the subpoena, 

as would be done now, it would impose a new scheme where a subpoena-er would have to go into court and get pre-clearance to get 

the subpoena issued. 

And I am pretty skeptical about that new approach and the fact 

that when it comes down to a criminal case, the only way that you 

could get the source of the information from the press would be if 

there is a national security issue or if the information is necessary 

to prevent imminent death or bodily harm or is necessary to help 

identify a person who disclosed trade secrets. For some reason, that 

is thrown in right there. But a commercial situation, in other 

words. 

And so I feel that with our current system of being able to issue 

a subpoena, with the Government being able to issue a subpoena 

and then the person who has been subpoenaed or entity that has 

been subpoenaed have the option of going into court to quash the 

subpoena based on rules now in effect, that has held us in good 

stead up to this point and I think we can look forward to do the 

same thing in the future. 

I am concerned about the assertions that we are having an upsurge in the number of subpoenas being issued for source information. There is a dispute about it. 

You say, Ms. Brand, that there are only 19 cases since 1991, four 

matters since 2001. And you, Professor Levine, assert that it is 

much more than that. I am concerned about that discrepancy, and 

I would look for us to be able to be a little bit more discriminatory 

in terms of what areas are covered by this legislation. 

So as it is proposed now, I don’t see myself being in support of 

it. 

And if anyone would like to comment, if we have time, I certainly 

would like to hear it. 

Mr. LEVINE. Congressman, can I just offer two observations? 

One is that there is no pre-clearance requirement in this statute. 

Procedurally, it would work exactly the way things work now. 

Somebody would issue a subpoena. The person receiving it would 

have to bring a motion to quash. It would be litigated before a 

judge pursuant to the substantive criteria as laid out in this statute. All this does is put a judicial check on the process. It doesn’t 

require somebody to go to court and say, ‘‘Please allow me to issue 

a subpoena.’’

The second thing is with respect to the criminal cases that you 

have expressed concern about, I think it is important to emphasize 

that this is a statute. This statute has to be construed consistently 

with the Constitution of the United States, including the sixth 

amendment. 

If there were a criminal case in which an accused’s right to a fair 

trial was, in fact, jeopardized by the application of this statute in 

that particular case, a court would have the authority to say the 

sixth amendment trumps. That is what happens in those States 

now where shield laws provide absolute protection against disclosure of confidential sources in any circumstances, much more 

broadly than this proposed statute. 

93

In California, for instance, where that is the case, the California 

Supreme Court has said, ‘‘But in a criminal case, where it is the 

criminal defendant who is asking to have the source disclosed, if 

the failure to compel the disclosure of that information would deprive him of his right to a fair trial, the statute has to give way.’’

And because this is a statute that is similarly subject to the Constitution, the same process would apply here. 

Ms. BRAND. Can I jump in there? I guess we read the bill very 

differently than Mr. Levine does. The issuance of a grand jury subpoena, we refer to that as compulsory process. 

It would be interesting for us to know, I guess, whether the 

drafters of the bill did not intend the Department of Justice or another litigant to have to go to the court for pre-approval to issue 

a subpoena. We read the bill to require us to do that, and maybe 

that is something that we could get clarification on later. 

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Johnson. 

The gentleman from California, Mr. Sherman, is recognized for 

5 minutes. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I thank the Chair. 

We are here dealing with journalists, sources and the Government and we want to avoid chilling those sources who might be 

chilled for fear of revelation. 

The first comment that we have in this country (or at this time 

around the world), the strangest communication system one can 

imagine, where so much of our information comes from sources 

that want to be anonymous, but validated. 

We have always had people writing things on the walls anonymously and we have always had people who will stand up and say 

what they want to say in their own voice. It is just now we have 

people who want the credibility of speaking in their own voice and 

the anonymity of being the unnamed source. 

Second, I would observe that usually we have witnesses there in 

front of us who are in the best position to tell us how to achieve 

the goal. The strange thing here is, here, it is up here we have perhaps the people most familiar with what we are trying to do, in 

that we are all sources. And the goal of this statute is source comfort, not so much journalist comfort. 

In fact, I have never seen a source who wanted to leak something 

and, well, one journalist wouldn’t take it, so they go to another one. 

There are lots of journalists, but for some stories, there is only one 

source. So the goal is to make us sources comfortable. 

And I would say, Professor Eliason, you have it right. When I, 

as a source, choose, as so many of those with a little bit of authority here in Washington do, to try to reveal something without putting my name on it, the least thing I am worried about is the Justice Department. 

I believe someone used the figure that there have been 19 cases 

since 1991 where sources have faced revelation from the Justice 

Department. I have been outed 19 times since 1991 and the Justice 

Department has had no role. 

How many times does a journalist say it is on background and 

then publish your name? Whoops, happens all the time. We had a 

case just last week where an aide in my office was told, ‘‘Well, 

thanks for the information and we won’t identify you by name or 

94

by title.’’ They just identified them as an aide to Congressman 

Sherman. 

I would say that for every time a source’s name is revealed by 

action of the Justice Department, there are 10,000 times or 100,000 

times when a source is revealed because of miscommunication between the source and the journalist, where you though it was off 

the record and, whoops, it wasn’t or the journalist was wrong on 

that or the source was wrong on that or the journalist made a mistake or the journalist’s notes went to another journalist and whether intentionally or with great just zeal to make it a good story. 

So I would say you would have to be crazy to be a source and 

worry about the Justice Department. It is like worrying about 

being hit by lightning as opposed to all the other ways in which 

a source’s name can be revealed. 

I would like to focus on the definition of journalism found in the 

bill that this hearing focuses on. 

Ms. Brand, the definition of journalism in the bill would include 

almost everyone I know would qualify as a journalist, certainly 

every Member of Congress. We are all engaged in gathering, preparing, collecting, recording and writing and publishing news and 

information of concern on local, national or international events or 

matters of public interest. 

That certainly covers every blogger. It certainly covers everybody 

with a Web site that deals with issues of national concern. It may 

cover everybody who just contributes to other folks’ blogs. 

The Justice Department has guidelines. Who qualifies as a journalist under those guidelines? 

Ms. BRAND. I don’t believe that the Department’s guidelines define the media. I think everyone sort of understands what the 

media——

Mr. SHERMAN. That would give me a grave risk, because I would 

think Attorney General Gonzales would consider certain—in drawing the line, might exclude from journalists some of my liberal and 

progressive friends and include some folks with conservative views. 

So as long as we have extremely vague standards in the Justice 

Department, I would hate to be a stringer for the Trotskyite newspaper and love to be a stringer for Fox News if human beings at 

the Justice Department was going to determine who qualified. 

Ms. BRAND. I am quite sure that distinctions are not made on the 

basis of an impression of the bent of a paper one way or the other. 

Our primary concern with the definition of journalism in the bill 

is that it would enable anyone who doesn’t want to provide evidence, for one reason or another, to find a way to put themselves 

within that broad category. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Yes. I would say anyone engaged in any illegal action would immediately put up a blog and try to get journalistic 

protection, because—and all of us could be—as I think all of my 

friends are journalists and anybody who wanted to avail themselves of this bill could easily qualify as a journalist under this definition. 

I look forward to trying to find a better definition. And I believe 

my time has expired. 

Mr. BOUCHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Sherman. 

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The gentleman from Minnesota, Mr. Ellison, is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. ELLISON. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

I just have a few questions about the bill, just to be clear. 

Could someone help me understand why, in section two, that one 

of the exceptions would include or is necessary to identify a person 

who has disclosed trade secrets? What is the theory behind including that provision of the bill? 

Is there someone who could share that with me? 

Mr. SAFIRE. Perhaps one of the bill’s drafters. 

Mr. BOUCHER. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. ELLISON. Certainly. 

Mr. BOUCHER. I guess I will be a witness for a moment. 

The purpose of including that exemption, as well as the exemption for personal financial information and personal health information that is disclosed in violation of law, is to address what are 

really very serious kinds of disclosures for which there really is no 

public policy underlying the disclosure. 

And in these instances, we thought it was appropriate, in part, 

to encourage nondisclosure that we provide these exceptions. 

Mr. ELLISON. Claiming my time back. I don’t see disclosure of 

personal health information and a trade secret quite the same. 

Do you think there is a distinction to be made between those two 

things? Because I can see circumstances under which it might be 

a very good trying for the public to know—for a trade secret to be 

disclosed, if there is some sort of—do you want to respond to that? 

Mr. BOUCHER. Well, if the gentleman will yield. 

Mr. ELLISON. I will. 

Mr. BOUCHER. I would point out the rest of that clause, which 

says that the disclosures have to be in violation of law. And so I 

think by definition, any disclosure that is in violation of law probably does not serve a valid public purpose. 

And so some policymakers, State legislatures or this congress 

will have made a decision that that information should remain private and that its disclosure is not in pursuit of a public purpose. 

I would say to the gentleman that I would be happy to have further conversations with him perhaps beyond this hearing about our 

intent with regard to these provisions and try to answer any further questions that he has and receive any suggestions you might 

have for possible modifications. 

Mr. ELLISON. Thank you. 

Ms. Brand, earlier in your presentation, you pointed out that perhaps Hezbollah might claim that they are a journalist enterprise 

and, therefore, use that as a means to not disclose information. 

Wouldn’t the third provision that talks about national security—

yes, yes. Wouldn’t that national security provision sort of deal with 

this question of some sort of a terrorist organization claiming that 

it is a journalism enterprise? 

Isn’t that addressed in the bill? 

Ms. BRAND. It might address certain situations, but this national 

security exception is so narrow. It is limited to where the Government can show by a preponderance of the evidence that imminent 

and actual national security harm is going to occur. 

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If information has already been disclosed and harm has already 

occurred, for example, this exception wouldn’t apply. If the harm 

is likely to occur, but somewhat speculative or not going to occur 

right away, again, that wouldn’t fall within the exception. 

So this is just very narrow. 

Mr. ELLISON. But you would agree with me that a court would 

be construing this provision and I think I would feel pretty comfortable that a judge is going to read this provision in a way that 

it is going to protect national security. 

Wouldn’t you agree? 

Ms. BRAND. I guess I would assume that the court would read 

the language on it face. And Congress must have meant something, 

if this bill were enacted, by mentioning imminent harm to the national security. 

Judges don’t just read words out of the statute, so——

Mr. ELLISON. Well, I mean, you agree, though, that judges do 

apply canons of statutory interpretation, which would go beyond 

simply what is written on the page, right? 

Ms. BRAND. The canons of statutory construction, there is a saying that you can find a canon to support any interpretation you 

want, but——

Mr. ELLISON. I guess my point is, Ms. Brand, that I—is it legitimate to say that the terrorists are going to get us and so we 

shouldn’t have this law? I mean, that struck me as somewhat hyperbole and I just want to know what your reaction is. 

Ms. BRAND. Well, one of the interests that we think is undermined by this bill is the Government’s interest in punishing leaks 

that have already damaged national security. 

It is a crime to disclose, in an unauthorized way, classified national security information, and sometimes those disclosures cause 

harm to the national security. The only way, in some cases, for the 

Government to bring someone to justice who has caused that kind 

of harm by a leak is to talk to a reporter. 

Those cases are very rare, but they do occur, and this bill would 

effectively prevent the Government from investigating those cases. 

This imminent harm to the national security exception would not 

help us prosecute that type of case. 

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Eliason, how might we improve the definition 

of journalist in order to make it a little bit narrower? 

I think that Representative Sherman’s point is pretty well-taken. 

It is pretty broad. I was thinking that some language in there that 

might refer to an agency dedicated to the enterprise of news gathering, not simply anyone who does it. 

Have you thought about how this definition might be made a little better? 

Mr. ELIASON. Yes, Congressman. As I said in my written testimony, I think this is actually a good definition in terms of defining 

a journalist, because anything narrower, I think, is going to run 

into severe first amendment problems. But that is part of the problem, I think, with the notion of drafting a Federal privilege today. 

I mean, at the time of Branzburg, we had newspapers and television and even then the Court noted that it is really hard to define 

who would actually deserve to claim this privilege, who would be 

a newsman worthy of the privilege. 

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Now, with the rise of the Internet and satellite and cable television and everything else, to adequately protect the first amendment, I think you need a definition that is this sweeping. Otherwise, the bill would be open to serious constitutional challenge. 

But then the flipside is, it has already been mentioned, by defining it that way, you make the bill so broad that anybody who films 

a public event with their cell phone and posts it on their MySpace 

page is probably a journalist. 

And so today, when we are all journalists, I think it has become 

very difficult, if not impossible, to draft a bill that accomplishes 

both of those purposes, staying reasonably narrow and, at the same 

time——

Mr. ELLISON. But you would agree that we are not really all journalists. I mean, we might all do things that are journalistic sometimes, but that is quite a bit different from, for example, what Mr. 

Safire has dedicated his life to. 

Mr. ELIASON. Absolutely. 

Mr. ELLISON. Don’t you think there is a difference to be made? 

Mr. ELIASON. Absolutely, practically speaking, there is, and there 

are some State statutes that refer to people making their livelihood 

from journalism. 

Mr. ELLISON. Well, Mr. Safire, maybe you could jump into this. 

Is what you have dedicated your life to the same thing as somebody 

filming a political rally and putting it on MySpace? It is a little different, wouldn’t you say? And my question is, can we craft language that would make the difference? 

Mr. SAFIRE. I think there are journalists and there are journalists. 

Mr. ELLISON. Thanks for your precision. 

Mr. SAFIRE. And I think the attempt to define it is a mistaken 

attempt. I would, in this case, agree with Professor Eliason for the 

only time this morning. 

Mr. BOUCHER. Well, on that pleasing note, we are going to conclude today. 

The time of the gentleman from Minnesota has expired. 

I want to say thank you on behalf of the Committee to our witnesses. You have been here now for 3 hours. You have shared 

thoughtful commentary with us, and we are most appreciative of 

your prepared testimony and even more so of your very candid answers provided to the questions that we posed to you. 

Members of the Committee may have additional questions that 

they would like to pose. And so, without objection, the record of 

this hearing will remain open for a period not to exceed 10 days, 

during which time questions can be propounded to you and answers can be received. 

With this Committee’s thanks once again to the witnesses, this 

hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:55 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.] 

(99)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE STEVE COHEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE, AND MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY

H.R. 2102, the ‘‘Free Flow of Information Act of 2007,’’ establishes a long overdue 

federal reporter’s privilege that protects, among other things, against the compelled 

disclosure of a confidential source’s identity except under a few limited circumstances. A federal reporter’s shield law is needed to ensure that confidential 

sources are encouraged to divulge information that may be of public concern to a 

journalist. Ensuring meaningful confidentiality to a source is critical to allowing the 

press to fulfill its role as a check on government and on other powerful institutions. 

Contrary to what critics claim, H.R. 2102 will not hamper effective law enforcement. The bill contains several clearly defined exceptions to the federal reporter’s 

privilege where disclosure of certain information, including the identity of a confidential source, can be compelled from a journalist. Moreover, empirical evidence 

does not support the critics’ argument. Almost every state and the District of Columbia recognize some sort of journalist’s privilege against being compelled to disclose the identity of a confidential source, and none of these jurisdictions has seen 

any real impediments to law enforcement as a result of that privilege. 

For all of these reasons, I am a co-sponsor of the ‘‘Free Flow of Information Act 

of 2007’’ and I urge its passage.

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LETTER FROM THE AMERICAN BEVERAGE ASSOCIATION, THE ASSOCIATION FOR COMPETITIVE TECHNOLOGY, THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES, THE

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS, AND THE RUBBER MANUFACTURERS

ASSOCIATION, DATED JUNE 14, 2007, TO CHAIRMAN CONYERS AND RANKING MEMBER SMITH


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1See Mills v. Alabama, 384 U.S. 214, 219 (1966) (the ‘‘Framers of our Constitution thoughtfully and deliberately selected’’ the press ‘‘to play an important role in the discussion of public 

affairs’’ and to ‘‘keep [our society] free’’). 2First Nat. Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 781 (1978). See also Mills, 384 U.S. at 

219 (the press ‘‘was designed to serve as a powerful antidote to any abuses of power by governmental officials and as a constitutionally chosen means for keeping officials elected by the people 

responsible to all the people whom they were selected to serve’’). 3 Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, 494 U.S. 652, 667 (1990). 4For example, the Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Journalism for 2005 was awarded to Nigel 

Jaquiss, of Willamette Week, who relied on confidential sources in his investigation exposing a 

former governor’s long-concealed sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old girl. The 1999 Pulitzer 

for National Reporting went to Jeff Gerth and staff at The New York Times for a series of articles disclosing the government-approved sales of American technology to China, despite these 

sales’ national security risks—stories that prompted investigations and significant changes in 

policy. This series relied heavily on confidential source material, both interviews and documents. 

In 2005, the George Polk Awards for Magazine Reporting, Military Reporting and Sports Reporting all went to articles based on confidential source material. See Brief Amicus Curiae of 36 

News and Journalist Organizations in In re Grand Jury Subpoenas to Mark Fainaru-Wada & 

Lance Williams and In re Grand Jury Subpoena to the San Francisco Chronicle, Nos. 06–16995 

& 06–16996 (9th Cir. Dec. 8, 2006), at 21–25 (discussing these and other significant and prizewinning stories that depended on confidential sources). 

PREPARED STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTERS

The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) respectfully submits this statement for the record in the Judiciary Committee’s June 14, 2007 hearing on the Free 

Flow of Information Act of 2007 (H.R. 2102). NAB is a trade association that advocates on behalf of more than 8,300 free, local radio and television stations and also 

broadcast networks before Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and 

other federal agencies, and the Courts. Radio and television broadcasters provide a 

free, over-the-air service that reaches virtually every household in America, keeping 

local communities—and your constituents—informed and connected. Our members 

serve listeners and viewers throughout the country with the news and public affairs 

programming vital to a well-functioning democracy. 

NAB wishes to commend Chairman Conyers, Representatives Boucher and Pence, 

and all co-sponsors for your collective leadership on the critical and timely issue of 

protecting the free flow of information to journalists and ultimately to the public we 

serve through a federal shield law. As you have recognized in your statements, the 

need for such protection is compelling. Increasingly, subpoenas to journalists have 

become a weapon of first resort for those seeking information concerning confidential sources. Without the ability to protect the identity of sources, newsrooms are 

less able to gather the facts necessary to bring to light injustice, fraud and abuse 

in both government and private sector. As crafted, the Free Flow of Information Act 

of 2007 strikes the appropriate balance between preserving the flow of information 

from a free press to the public and protecting other important governmental interests, including national security. The legislation also brings federal law into better 

conformance with state law in this area. 

PASSAGE OF H.R. 2102 WILL HELP ENSURE THAT THE PUBLIC IS INFORMED

OF VITALLY IMPORTANT MATTERS

Enactment of the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007 will further the ability 

of the press to perform fully its role in our democracy—serving as a surrogate for 

the public. Over two hundred years ago, in drafting our Bill of Rights, the Founders 

singled out the press as the only private industry to merit its own specific guarantee 

against government intrusion.1 The Supreme Court has consistently recognized this 

unique role that the press plays in ‘‘informing and educating the public, offering 

criticism, and providing a forum for discussion and debate.’’ 2 The Court has also 

noted that media entities differ from other companies and institutions ‘‘in that their 

resources are devoted to the collection of information and its dissemination to the 

public.’’ 3 Indeed, just last month, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told the graduating U.S. Naval Academy Class of 2007 that the press is a ‘‘critically important 

guarantor of our freedom.’’

At times, members of the press must rely on confidential sources to fulfill their 

important role of informing and educating the public. Confidential sources have 

been vital to a number of groundbreaking stories, ranging from Watergate to illegal 

accounting practices at Enron to the abuse of steroids in baseball. Stories based on 

confidential source material have regularly received the most coveted journalism 

awards, including the Pulitzer Prize and the George Polk Awards for Excellence in 

Journalism.4 As broadcast television reporter James Taricani has previously atVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:42 Sep 05, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00105 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 H:\WORK\FULL\061407\36019.000 HJUD1 PsN: 36019
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5 Brief Amici Curiae of 24 News and Journalist Organizations in Judith Miller v. USA and 

Matthew Cooper and Time Inc. v. USA, Nos. 04–1507 & 04–1508 (Sup. Ct. May 18, 2005), at 

7. 

tested, during his 30-year career in journalism, he has relied on confidential sources 

to report well over 100 stories on diverse issues of public concern, including public 

corruption, sexual abuse by clergy, organized crime, misuse of taxpayers’ money, the 

misuse of union funds leading to the ouster of a union president, and the ethical 

shortcomings of a Chief Justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court.5

Investigative journalists in particular perform a great deal of the press’s vital 

work. Unfortunately, nearly a dozen of them have recently faced criminal prosecution and other severe consequences simply for doing their jobs. Overall, more than 

30 reporters have been subpoenaed or questioned about their confidential sources, 

their notes, and their work product over the past few years in civil and criminal 

cases in federal court. 

For example, in November 2004, U.S. District Judge Ernest C. Torres found Jim 

Taricani, an investigative reporter for WJAR-TV in Providence, RI, in contempt of 

court for refusing to reveal the source of a videotape that aired on his television station. Three years prior, a confidential source gave Taricani the videotape, which 

showed a city official receiving cash. The tape was later used as evidence in the corruption trial of former Providence mayor Buddy Cianci and his aide, who accepted 

the money. Both were convicted and served federal prison sentences. 

A special prosecutor pursued Taricani, trying to force him to reveal his source. 

Judge Torres imposed $1,000 a day in fines, and, when Taricani refused to identify 

his source, Judge Torres gave Taricani two weeks to change his mind or face jail 

time. 

Taricani, however, took a courageous stand over a very important principle. When 

he accepted the videotape from his source, he promised not to disclose the source’s 

identity. He kept his promise even though time in jail could endanger his health. 

Taricani received a heart transplant in 1996, and was vulnerable to infection. 

For refusing to name his source, Judge Torres sentenced Taricani to confinement 

for six months. Fortunately, Judge Torres permitted Taricani to serve his sentence 

at home, but with restrictions. Taricani was denied access to the Internet, could 

leave home only to visit doctors, and could receive visitors only during specific 

hours. And during his confinement, the residents of Providence were denied the benefits of Taricani’s investigative reports. 

Less than two weeks after he was set free, Jim Taricani spoke to a large group 

of broadcasters at the RTNDA@NAB 2005 annual convention in Last Vegas. He provided a clear explanation of the immediate need for a federal shield law. Recognizing that courts must work with the current law, Taricani told us that he had 

been threatened with contempt of court three times during the course of his career. 

The first two cases were state cases, and state shield laws kept him out of prison. 

Interestingly, in one of those state cases, the judge was the very same one who sent 

Taricani to prison several years later from the federal bench. 

Jim Taricani’s sobering story illustrates the most important point in this discussion. In two cases involving protection of his sources, Taricani was faced with the 

same judge, but two different sets of laws, and the outcomes were dramatically different. The state law protected Taricani and recognized his and his profession’s significant contributions to democracy. The federal law, however, failed to protect him 

from punishment for simply doing his job. 

PASSAGE OF H.R. 2102 WILL BRING FEDERAL LAW INTO CONFORMANCE WITH THE

STATES, WHICH CONSISTENTLY RECOGNIZE THAT THE FAILURE TO PROTECT REPORTERS’ SOURCES WILL REDUCE THE FLOW OF INFORMATION TO THE PUBLIC

Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia have shield laws enabling journalists to protect the identity of sources. Seventeen other states have judicially recognized reporter’s privileges, and legislation is pending in several of these states to 

codify the privilege. Clearly, the overwhelming sentiment among state legislators 

and judges in this country is that shield laws are necessary to further the public 

interest. 

Significantly, 34 state attorneys general joined forces in 2005 to urge the Supreme 

Court to recognize a reporter’s right to keep sources confidential in a case involving 

the leak of an undercover Central Intelligence Agency officer’s identity. These attorneys general stressed that the states’ recognition of a reporter’s shield rested on the 

belief that an ‘‘informed citizenry and the preservation of news information sources 

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6 Brief Amici Curiae of 34 States and the District of Columbia in Judith Miller v. USA and 

Matthew Cooper and Time Inc. v. USA, Nos. 04–1507 & 04–1508 (Sup. Ct. May 27, 2005), at 

3–4 (State Attorneys General Brief). 7 Id. at 4. 8 Id. at 3. 9See Lori Robertson, Kind of Confidential, American Journalism Review (June/July 2007). 10State Attorneys General Brief, at 8. 

are of vital importance to a free society.’’ 6 Without a federal reporter’s shield, journalists ‘‘would find their newsgathering abilities compromised, and citizens would 

find themselves far less able to make informed political, social and economic 

choices.’’ 7 Moreover, according to the state attorneys general, the lack of a federal 

reporter’s shield undermined the legislative and judicial determinations of all the 

states recognizing such a shield.8

Some have questioned whether requiring confidential sources to disclose information would in fact impair investigative journalism and the flow of information from 

sources to the public. For example, Judge Torres wrote that the claim that disclosure of confidential sources chills newsgathering is a ‘‘myth’’ perpetuated by the 

news media. Those who believe that this is a ‘‘myth’’ are mistaken. 

An article in the most recent American Journalism Review documented recent 

changes that have occurred in the relationships between journalists and their 

sources.9 The article explains that, while journalists used to be able to promise simply that they would protect their sources unconditionally, the emerging practice involves holding more explicit conversations about the extent of the protections being 

offered to a source and even requests to sources to sign written agreements. These 

agreements define exactly under what circumstances the source is or is not protected. By obtaining detailed agreements from sources, the theory goes, reporters 

protect themselves from threats of imprisonment and protect their employers from 

incurring hefty fines. 

But these agreements can also chill newsgathering. It is myth to suggest that 

journalists will be able to unearth the information they need from sources when 

they must explain the procedures of a grand jury proceeding and a subpoena before 

every interview. Just imagine the important stories (including those discussed 

above) that would in all likelihood have been lost if the sources had been asked to 

review a detailed written agreement each time they met with a journalist. 

Clearly, it is time for the federal government to bring itself in line with the states 

and ensure that news sources feel safe in giving information to journalists about 

issues of public concern. Passage of the Free Flow of Information Act will ensure 

that sources with information about fraud, waste, abuse and injustice in government 

and the private sector are not inhibited from communicating with the news media—

and thus with the public as a whole. 

H.R. 2102 STRIKES THE APPROPRIATE BALANCE BETWEEN PRESERVING THE FLOW OF

INFORMATION TO THE PUBLIC AND PROTECTING OTHER GOVERNMENTAL INTERESTS

With regard to the bill itself, NAB believes that it strikes a reasonable balance 

between the need to preserve a free flow of information to the public and our collective concern in protecting national security and other significant government interests. The legislation essentially does no more than codify and make binding the Department of Justice’s established policy on issuing subpoenas to reporters. The privilege it provides is qualified—it would require journalists to testify at the request 

of criminal prosecutors, criminal defendants and civil litigants who have shown by 

a preponderance of the evidence that they have met the various tests for compelled 

disclosure. A confidential source’s identity can be compelled if disclosure is necessary to prevent ‘‘imminent and actual harm’’ to national security, to prevent ‘‘imminent death or significant bodily harm,’’ or to identify a person who has disclosed 

significant trade secrets or certain financial or medical information in violation of 

current law. Importantly, the legislation provides a uniform set of standards to govern when testimony can be sought from reporters. 

NAB emphasizes that passage of this bill should not be delayed. As the state attorneys general have stressed, the ‘‘present confusion and lack of clarity as to the 

existence and the scope of a federal’’ reporter’s shield ‘‘disserve[s] the public, sources 

and reporters.’’ 10 If Congress does not ensure that journalists retain access to confidential sources without fear of legal reprisal, we can rest assured that sooner rather than later another journalist will face a dilemma like the one that faced Jim 

Taricani. Forcing reporters to make choices between going to jail or breaking promises of confidentiality will increase the reluctance of potential sources to come forVerDate 0ct 09 2002 15:42 Sep 05, 2007 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00107 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 H:\WORK\FULL\061407\36019.000 HJUD1 PsN: 36019
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ward with information about matters of public concern. All of us will be less informed about important issues as a result. 

CONCLUSION

Again, NAB commends the sponsors of this bill from both parties for their efforts 

to protect the flow of vital information to journalists and ultimately to the public 

we serve through a federal shield law. H.R. 2102 strikes the appropriate balance 

between promoting an informed public and other governmental interests, and will 

bring federal law into conformance with the states on this important issue. NAB 

urges the Committee to swiftly pass the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007 and 

bring it to the House floor.

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LETTER FROM DENIS A. CARDMAN, ACTING DIRECTOR, AMERICAN BAR ASSOCIATION, 

DATED JUNE 13, 2007, TO CHAIRMAN CONYERS


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