Kevin takes another crack at arguing for a federal shield law. He says in part:
The Washington Monthly: Protecting a source who's a whistleblower is one thing, but the person who outed Valerie Plame was breaking the law, and doing it solely for partisan revenge.
Almost all whistleblowers break the law, if only by handing over government property — and often the laws they break are more serious. If you force reporters to testify against any source who has broken the law, most sources will dry up.
As for the motive of the leaker in the Valerie Plame case, it's hard to hang your hat on that. After all, who gets to decide which leakers are acting from virtuous motives and which ones aren't? One man's patriot is another man's traitor.
If you support free speech, you support it regardless of whether somebody is saying something you like. Likewise with reporter-source privilege, you have to support it regardless of whether you like the motives of the leaker. There's really no other way."
I can see his point, but I still have to disagree. The motive of a whistleblower is often in one way or another to save something besides himself (lives, taxpayer dollars, etc.), often at great risk to himself. They should be protected. The motive in the Plame case is pretty clearly to cause harm, not to serve any greater good. I'm willing to grant reporters (bloggers, whoever) the right to protect their sources by default, but I don't think that it should be an absolute right any more than free speech is an absolute right (think shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, inciting a crowd to violence, etc.).
Posted by Jason at June 29, 2005 07:41 AM