[Infowarrior] - Bush Officials Oppose Media Shield Bill

[Richard Forno]

Bush Officials Oppose Media Shield Bill

By PETE YOST
The Associated Press
Thursday, April 3, 2008; 9:44 PM

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/03/AR2008040303
200_pf.html

WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Michael Mukasey and three other top Bush
administration officials are weighing in against legislation that would
allow reporters to protect the identities of confidential sources who
provide sensitive, sometimes embarrassing information about the government.

The "Free Flow of Information Act" proposed by Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.,
could harm national security and would encourage more leaks of classified
information, the four officials wrote in letters to senators made public
Thursday.

The legislation gives an overly broad definition of journalists that "can
include those linked to terrorists and criminals," wrote Mukasey and
National Intelligence Director Mike McConnell.

"All individuals and entities who 'gather' or 'publish' information about
'matters of public interest' but who are not technically designated
terrorist organizations, foreign powers or agents of a foreign power will be
entitled to the bill's protections," Mukasey and McConnell stated in their
joint letter.

Specter, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, responded:
"My staff met today with DNI and DoJ officials regarding the concerns
expressed in the letter, and we are considering them."

"I think the legislation has an important purpose," Specter added. "I think
we can make reasonable accommodations to their concerns, and we're working
on it."

In a separate letter, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the nation would
be more vulnerable to "adversaries' counterintelligence efforts to recruit"
those shielded by the bill.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the bill would erect
roadblocks to gathering information "from anyone who can claim to be a
journalist, including bloggers" and Internet service providers.

The opposition of the top Bush administration officials follows recent
high-profile episodes in which reporters have fought efforts to reveal their
government sources.

Former USA Today reporter Toni Locy is seeking to reverse a contempt of
court citation for refusing to reveal her Justice Department and FBI sources
for stories about the criminal investigation of the 2001 anthrax attacks.

Among the government leakers of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, it
turns out, were President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and Vice
President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Former New York Times reporter Judith Miller spent 85 days in jail for
refusing to identify Libby to investigators.

The leaks of Plame's identity occurred after Plame's husband publicly
accused the administration of twisting prewar intelligence to exaggerate the
Iraqi threat.

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald eventually won convictions against Libby
for perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI. Bush commuted Libby's
30-month prison sentence.

Co-sponsors on the bill include Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick
Leahy, D-Vt., Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Christopher Dodd
of Connecticut, Charles Schumer of New York and Tim Johnson of South Dakota,
along with Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Richard
Lugar of Indiana.

"We've already sought to address these security concerns in a careful way,"
Schumer said in a statement. "The administration ought to overcome its
visceral dislike of the media and do the right thing."