No doubt President Barack Obama is privy to information that U.S. Sen. Barack Obama never imagined. As commander in chief, he is aware of dangers, domestic and foreign, that even the most informed member of Congress, not to mention the general public, can’t know.
That said, we are disturbed by a partial shift in Obama’s position on a federal shield law for professional journalists. The majority of states have such laws, which protect sensitive news sources and whistle blowers from exposure, and protect news reporters from going to jail for keeping those sources anonymous.
For many years now, several members of Congress, including Indiana’s Richard Lugar and Mike Pence, have worked patiently to bring a federal shield statute in line with those of the states. For eight years, the George W. Bush administration fought those efforts with an unprecedented zeal.
As the junior senator from Illinois, Obama co-sponsored the very sort of protective federal legislation his administration is now attempting to weaken. At issue is how much influence the White House should have on forcing a journalist to reveal his or her source in a story that concerns “classified information.” (For the Bush White House, almost everything but the First Family’s grocery lists seemed to warrant “classified” status.)
The passed House version of the shield law, and a version currently idling in the Senate Judiciary Committee, provide for judicial review of such questions. If and when the executive branch contends published information threatens national security, but a news organization insists it is about the public’s right to know, a federal judge would hear both arguments, confidentially, and decide.
Sounding eerily like its predecessor, the Obama White House now wants the Senate bill to be changed to allow its wishes — and words — to weigh more than the news media’s before the judge ever hears the two sides. If the presidential administration in charge said, “This will (or already did) jeopardize national security,” a judge would be bound to defer to that declaration without real argument or proof.
When the Bush administration was practicing this kind of unilateral stifling of information, Sen. Obama rightly disapproved. He may now deeply believe that his White House would never abuse such power — and it might not. But we don’t know that anymore than we know what future administrations might do.
There is a reason such veteran legislators as Lugar and Pence — people who do not play fast and loose with national security — have put their efforts into constructing this reasonable federal shield law. President Obama and his security advisers need to consider the history of this law and the intentions of the men and women who have crafted it and guided it through Congress. Sen. Obama was quite articulate on the subject.
Editorials
TRIBUNE-STAR EDITORIAL: Federal shield law needs to be passed, not weakened
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EDITORIAL: Big dreams do come true
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EDITORIAL: Big ‘kick’ from a native son
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EDITORIAL: Smoking ban good enough
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EDITORIAL: United Way’s strong reputation helps sustain community trust
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EDITORIAL: Nothing sexy about human trafficking
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EDITORIAL: The law’s good ‘Shepard’
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EDITORIAL: Cops at risk
Indiana lawmakers are playing with a loaded gun in a bill that passed the Indiana Senate Monday, 45-5.
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TRIBUNE-STAR EDITORIAL: Helping your community, a few mouse clicks at a time
When you type WabashValleyGives.org into your web browser, hundreds of opportunities to help your local community will open on the screen before you.
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EDITORIAL: Raves around the town
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EDITORIAL: Let Hoosiers have a say on right-to-work bill
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EDITORIAL: Thin ice winter’s deadly scourge
Six-year-old Trevor Wayne Young of Nashville, Ind., and 50-year-old Allen D. Johnson of Galva, Ill., probably had little in common — except the way they died.
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EDITORIAL: Meeting needs at St. Ann's
The caliber of a community often is revealed by its efforts to help its least fortunate citizens.
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EDITORIAL: A sweet deal for Amazon.com
That loud lip-smack on the cheek you heard echoing from Indianapolis last week was the sound of Gov. Mitch Daniels kissing off on what amounts to another sweetheart deal between Indiana and Amazon.com, the online retailing giant.
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EDITORIAL: A new era for growth
The promised announcement of a major new industry for the former Pfizer property in southern Vigo County turned out to be well worth the wait.
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EDITORIAL: Transparency a worthy goal
Do taxpayers have the right to know specific details of contracts between elected school boards and superintendents they hire to run their operations?
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EDITORIAL: Shakir Bell’s success gives boost to Sycamore football
Hope inspires progress. It’s the fuel for a better future.
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EDITORIAL: Inspiration for the future
Hope inspires progress. It’s the fuel for a better future.
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EDITORIAL: Put teeth in public access laws
Indiana’s laws governing public access, as good as they are, lack something important — teeth. There are no significant consequences for agencies or employees who intentionally violate them.
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EDITORIAL: Time for teamwork in Sullivan
The beginning of a new mayoral term in any community is — or should be — a time when the talk of the town is rife with ideas, improvements and changes.
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EDITORIAL: Lawmakers should leave IHSAA, high school basketball alone
In an idyllic world, Indiana could restore its fabled single-class high school basketball state tournament, and thousands of fans would pour into gymnasiums from Angola to Corydon in hopes of witnessing another “Milan Miracle” year after year after year.
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EDITORIAL: ‘Anthem’ proposal way off key
Remember Faith Hill’s impassioned rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner” at the Super Bowl in 2000?
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EDITORIAL: Back from the access brink
It took almost a week, but Gov. Daniels finally stepped up and did the right thing on Wednesday, rescinding new rules aimed at restricting the number of people allowed in the Statehouse during this session of the General Assembly.
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EDITORIAL: Poor decision by local Dems
By a little after 4 this afternoon, Terre Haute Mayor Duke Bennett will have been sworn in for a second term and City Councilman-elect Robert All will have taken the oath of office for the first time.
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EDITORIAL: Be it resolved …
Resolutions for 2012 are top-of-mind today.
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EDITORIAL: Another slice of Classic history
Baseball is the so-called American pastime, but to Hoosiers and to our Illinois neighbors, it’s basketball that gets a community’s blood pumping. And no form of roundball does that any more intimately than high school basketball, whether boys or girls. College hoops is great, but nothing quite beats the packed, overheated confines of a high school gym when a tight game turns on every possession, every shot, every rebound, every pass, every defensive position. The sing-song of cheerleaders, the shrillness of a ref’s whistle, the squeak of gym shoes on hardwood, the shouted instructions from the benches, the aroma of popcorn — those form a Midwestern tableau unlike any other.
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EDITORIAL: A strategy for growth
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71 Band to perform in Paris
71 Band, sponsored by the Paris, Ill., High School Class of 71, will be playing at 8 p.m. Friday at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Paris.
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