House passes measure to protect reporters

HOUSE PASSES MEASURE TO PROTECT REPORTERS
[SOURCE: Reuters, AUTHOR: Andy Sullivan]
The House of Representatives defied a White House veto threat on Tuesday and overwhelmingly passed legislation that would protect reporters from being jailed for refusing to reveal confidential sources. By a vote of 398 to 21, the House sent to the Senate a bill that would prohibit prosecutors from forcing reporters to reveal confidential sources, except under limited circumstances. The margin of the House vote was more than the two-thirds majority needed to override a possible veto by President George W. Bush. The bill was prompted by prosecutors' threats to jail reporters who didn't cooperate in several high-profile cases, including the BALCO steroid scandal in San Francisco and the CIA leak investigation in Washington. The White House said the bill would hurt national security by making it too difficult to prosecute leaks of classified information.
http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN1622517620071016

* House Passes Shield Law
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6491955.html?rssid=193

* White House Threatens to Veto Shield Law
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6491947.html?rssid=193

* House Passes Bill to Protect Confidentiality of Reporters' Sources
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/16/AR200710...

* House extends federal shield law for reporters
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-shield17oct17,1,...

-- See also --
* Crackdowns On Bloggers Increasing, Survey Finds
[SOURCE: Washington Post, AUTHOR: Nora Boustany]
Government repression in some countries has shifted from journalists to bloggers, with the vitality of the Internet triggering a more focused crackdown as blogs increasingly take the place of mainstream news media, according to Lucie Morillon, Washington director of the advocacy group Reporters Without Borders. "Countries that were not sentencing journalists to prison terms anymore have been doing it these last months for bloggers. This is the case in Egypt and Jordan," she said yesterday as the group released its sixth annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index. Egypt ranked 146th and Jordan 122nd in press freedom among the 169 countries for which data were available. Reporters Without Borders said major industrialized countries, including the United States, made slight progress, moving up several notches, with the exception of Russia. Iceland topped the list for press freedom in the survey, and Eritrea ranked last.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/16/AR200710...
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