I am usually for any expansion, reinforcement, or protection of the civil liberties provided in the Bill of Rights are a philosophical absolute. Senator Dodd's
proposal to protect journalists from ever having to reveal their sources may be crossing a line that should clearly be drawn. Clearly, a conservative reading this will come to the conclusion that my desire to protect Valerie Plame is just my liberal bias speaking. However, I think there is a distinction between types of leaks.
There are laws on the books to protect whistleblowers, and they are good laws. Even if the action of the whistleblower is technically a violation of their employment contract, or the law, they should be protected from punishment for revealing greater transgressions within an organization. We can protect the integrity of whistleblower protections, and in general protect the rights of journalists to protect their confidential sources without giving in to those who attempted a smear campaign against the Ambassador Wilson and his wife.
Dodd's law is necessary, as the article points out:
John Strum, president of the Newspaper Association of America, said the bill would allow journalists to do their jobs without fear of penalty.
Mr. Dodd understands the danger. The journalists protecting the Plame leak source understand that by ceding their privilege to the court they are eroding the protections that currently allow them to do their job effectively. However, by not placing protections against "flame throwers", there is the potential for expanding the Fox News "some people are saying" method of sourcing their stories, with no accountability at all. Mr. Dodd's law is a necessary protection, but needs to be developed with some method of vetting the sources anonymously.
Someone who breaks the law to damage someone's reputation (as in the Plame incident) should not be afforded the same protection as someone who breaks the law to expose a government official's involvement in crime X. Also, a journalist who knowingly passes on false, misleading, or classified information for the purposes of damaging someone's reputation or to distort the truth should not be allowed to march under the same banner as journalists with integrity (yeah, Novak, I am talking about you).
While it is nice to actually see a Democratic Senator marching along proposing legislation, in this case Senator Dodd's attempt to protect journalists, Senator Dodd had best consider ways of strengthening this bill before it becomes the Protect Robert Novak's Weaselness Act of 2005.