Media Shield Law Now Protects Anonymous Attackers
Senator Arlen Specter just issued a press release announcing an agreement on the Reporter/Media Shield Bill in Congress. Here is, in part, what he had to say about what the bill now does:
• revisits the change made to the definition of journalist in the September 24 Manager’s Amendment by removing the requirement that the journalist be a salaried employee or independent contractor for a media organization. This should permit freelance authors to be covered, and it also provides the potential for journalists publishing on blogs to be covered as well.
In other words, citizen journalists and bloggers can claim they are reporting the news and protect those anonymous scofflaws attacking and targeting children, family, friends, small businesses, etc. Here’s the entire press release: Shield Law.
Is there nobody in Washington DC protecting the interests of families? It looks like the free speech expansionist lobbying interests are about to win again.
This bill should be labelled the “Act promoting and licensing false and damaging attacks on our citizens”. Speak up. Maybe it is not too late to be heard.
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[...] revisits the change made to the definition of journalist in the September 24 Manager’s Amendment by removing the requirement that the journalist be a salaried employee or independent contractor for a media organization. This should permit freelance authors to be covered, … In other words, citizen journalists and bloggers can claim they are reporting the news and protect those anonymous scofflaws attacking and targeting children, family, friends, small businesses, etc. …Continue Reading [...]