Talk:Shield laws in the United States

Definition

What makes one a journalist? Does a blogger fit the definition? 85.250.205.64 07:58, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

An interesting philosophical point. Most state shield laws define who qualifies for protection. My guess is that it would be a case-by-case decision, based on the specific statute and employment status. --Quantum7 20:47, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

The EFF addresses this.[1] They sidestep the issue by applying reporter's privilege to information obtained for "news gathering", regardless of publication medium. --Quantum7 00:18, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

List of States

I was looking through the list of states with and without shield laws. There seems to be some disagreement between sources. All sources were accessed Feb 8, 2013.

• Rozel book
  • Original text read '49 states and the District of Columbia offer shield law protections'
  • Later changed to '40 states...' by 130.209.6.40[2]
  • Need access to the original text to verify
• RCFP (currently cited, but conflicts with the list)
  • Status for each state
  • Map of states
  • Lists 13 states without shield laws (ID, IA, KS, MA, MS, MO, NH, SD, VT, VA, WV, WI, WY)
  • No date of last update, but refers to pending bills in the 2007 legislature.
• SPLC
  • 2010 copyright
  • 10 without shield law (ID, IA, MA, MS, MO, NH, SD, VT, VA, WY)
  • 15 without a court-recognized privilege (CO, DC, KY, MD, MI, MT, NE, NV, NJ, NM, ND, OR, RI, TN, WY)

New Hampshire is currently listed as having a shield law, despite disagreement with the 'State Laws' section. This was changed by 98.116.167.235 [3]

Synthesizing all this sources, it seems to me that the correct facts are

• 49 states have some form of protection, either a law or court precident (original Rozel + SPLC)
• 40 states + DC have a law
• 10 don't have a law
• New Hampshire doesn't have a law

I'm going to build these facts into a table to replace the current two lists.

Also worth investigating is whether Hawaii's shield law was allowed to expire in 2011 or renewed, since none of the existing sources seem to have been updated since 2011.

--Quantum7 22:11, 8 February 2013 (UTC)

Other countries

Currently Shield law redirects to Shield laws in the United States. Don't other countries also have special protections for journalistic sources? Reporter's privilege has a similar U.S. bias. --Quantum7 00:22, 12 February 2013 (UTC)

Current Issues

I would like to propose a change to Current Issues, if no one objects. I will have to find some appropriate citations. The section currently uses a straw man argument for opponents. It may not be entirely straw man, but the more common argument is that the first amendment implies such protection, and that this bill would codify the judicial precedences compelling journalists to reveal their sources under certain conditions, and would compel all non journalists to reveal their sources under ANY condition. If it is possible to do so, then clearly it could be used as an end-run around the First Amendment because the threat of legal issues could be used to silence dissent. Mkaney (talk) 18:20, 3 April 2014 (UTC)