In a recent USA Today editorial the Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell speaks for himself and other directors of US intelligence agencies against a reporter’s shield bill being considered in Congress. While there are serious criticisms that can be made of this bill, McConnell hits none of them. Instead we get gems like this -
“We do not see the problem that this bill is meant to address. All evidence indicates that the free flow of information has continued unabated in the absence of a federal reporter’s privilege.”
The problem that the bill is meant to address is that people in the government are not allowed to break the law. If they are breaking the law there needs to be a method for good citizens to reveal that wrong-doing. McConnell is essentially arguing for governmental immunity to do whatever it wants.
The bill in question has some problems, not the least of which it conveys special rights to “journalists” when no one’s really sure what that means anymore, creating an ambiguous, arbitrary class of citizen.
And for McConnell to say that “all evidence indicates that the free flow of information has continued unabated” is simply a lie. If there were a free flow of information the CIA videos documenting torture would not have been destroyed, and memos like this giving the green light to torture techniques would not be so heavily redacted. We only know about the CIA black sites and extraordinary rendition because of journalists. Until the government becomes perfectly transparent need to push for more transparency, not less.
